Cellar Tracker - is there API access?

I was lamenting the cut/paste into Cellar tracker ahead of me. That got me thinking… (Sorry for the tech speak vs wine speak)

Are there APIs or formats retailers (or wineries) can use to get your order more directly into Cellar Tracker?

In order to load into Cellar Tracker, each retailer needs to verify the bottle is in Cellar Tracker and provide the right IDs. Then either CT makes an automated handoff and load or they make a file based import available.

  1. Enquire wine (API vs the form) to get the iWine ID on your invoice
  2. Winery/Producer add wine via API to get unique ID (iProducer scope of control but would not work for a retailer or importer) - there will be misses.
  3. API to allow customer to log on to Cellar Tracker from a retailer directly? Some auth grant flow to hand off to the retailer. If a file download is used it may be only done by the user. Retailer just makes an import ready file with the right IDs of the wines in the order.
  4. Cellar Tracker import file (or API) that can be allocated to an order. Excel, XML, JSON/ Don’t care about the format, just make it easy to connect into CT. The retailer would have to have the identifiers about each wine at the ready. Whether that is API driven or a catalog file exported from CT to these retailers I am not sure. Excel may be easiest for a customer to hand hold it through. iWine ID and iProducer ID and possibly an exact match on itemProp name could validate each wine on CT side. The API/form could have price and quantity added from your invoice. The retailer could be automated too but as it is a freeform field per user I think.

Once you upload/submit, I am guessing looking at page sources the GUID CK is the individual wine in your collection. There will have to be error handling and sections for non-CellarTracker items on your invoice. Maybe an invoice ID for the retailer would be a good reconciliation for the customer and delivery tracking item. Very large orders could need pagination too.

  1. Shipment update - some retailers notify customers of delivery receipt, why not go a step further and add Cellar Tracker delivery dates to those items?

Cellar Tracker could sell this not only to retailers but restaurants. From the invoice, create the barcode labels from the invoice.

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might ask directly on the CT forum (or does that no longer exist?)

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I’m not convinced that doing the integration at the retailer level is worthwhile. How does adding this nontrivial integration benefit the retailer? There is perhaps a slight convenience factor for large collectors that care enough about reducing CT data entry, but for the vast majority of customers I can’t imagine that it’s a value-add.

IMO, CT should strongly consider automating adding purchase information in a manner similar to how kayak.com keeps track of your flight itineraries. That is, the user just forwards the e-mail receipt and they add some parsing logic to figure out how to extract the purchase details from the receipt.

Everybody absolutely hates data entry in CT. CT should prioritize features that minimize the amount of data entry users need to do.

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Cellar Tracker is a product information database of sorts but for developed for local inventory uses. Can that product data be standardized to help facilitate inventory management automation from a variety of resellers?

Going from a free from receipt puts to onus on Cellar Tracker. Making the product API available encourages others to access the data and standardize the bridge to Cellar Tracker as a defacto wine product information database.

I am thinking of restaurant users would benefit (and pay for this) as well as individual users. CT could sell more restaurant integrations if the suppliers had a way of giving the info for the inventory management end of things. Then the barcodes for printing comes into play. Maybe even RFID tags next.

It could also lead to retailer integrations to promote wines with Cellar Tracker linkages. Customers have to buy their professional ratings links, but the community ratings are generally well done.

glenn - emailed you. interesting thread.

Standing on the outside, I agree with Chris here. At least in the context of individual users, it seems hard to rationalize building out retailer integration. Building a receipt-to-inventory suggestion feature might put the onus on CT, but it’s a customer-facing feature that would benefit the end user directly. There are probably some cool autofill UX solutions to this problem if you could upload a receipt or even just a list of wines.

As much as I love CT, I can’t imagine a scenario where a CT integration leads me to choose one retailer over another. For me at least, there’s already too much brand loyalty and noise involved with the online wine shopping decision process (e.g. price, shipping, etc.) to consider a CT integration at the point of sale.

A. Yes, there is a support forum ON CT itself where Eric L. and his team will see the idea and respond. Eric may see it here, and good discussion, but more likely imo to insure an answer by asking there.

B. Most (all) wines currently get created to start with in CT by users. This process is painful and results in infinite duplicates and errors. BUT, that is how CT is built because the users are invested in getting the info in there. I’ve seen talk in my 13 years using CT about having producers or retailers standardize codes, etc for automated or validated wine creation and the answer has been “impossible” due to varying labelling and distribution chains across the thousands of wine produced annually around the world. Without a standard entry of the original wine, how could any automated retailer scan entry system be expected to cover every wine accurately with all the duplication errors as possible as current in CT. I guess it’s feasible if some were standard, but I cant see it as feasible for the same reasons wine “creation” is “impossible”.

C. I too hate data entry, so would love for people smarter than me to figure this out.

I would argue that the onus should be on CellarTracker. They are the ones that want to provide a valuable service for their paying customers. Building rails to streamline the purchase->import process should be in their direct interest in terms of building a sticky product that people won’t want to leave. Honestly, I feel that they have become complacent in their current market dominance and have failed to innovate here.

That being said, I do like what you are saying about improving integrations and APIs so that CT becomes the canonical database of wine. That would be in their direct interest as well, but I think that it is a much tougher slog to build those sorts of b2b relationships and integrations when there is little value to be had on the other side.

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I, too, agree with Chris; however, the receipt idea is DOA; many (most?) wine receipts lack the information necessary to precisely identify the bottle/wine (size; vintage; exact wine).

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While maybe not retailers, offsite storage companies should do this. The Wine Owners platform, for example, would be better with a CT integration. Same with Vinfolio.

Hey all, thanks for the great thread.

With regard to the broad comment on complacency (I prefer “conservatism” but the end action is the same), I agree and that is why we have grown the team from 4 to 15 people over the past 15 months. I am hopeful that you will also start to see more of the fruits of that investment soon. By the way, the majority of wines created now are actually by our editorial team when people send us label pictures.

As for the scenario under discussion here, it is certainly something we have discussed many times, and there are a variety of technical approaches. I will say that we agree that it would be a HUGE win for end users and would really lower friction and make it easier to keep your collection up to date.

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My loathing of Wine Owners is limitless; it is not designed for consumer-collectors, rather it is designed for ITB and speculator use. The cellar management/storage company that I use recently sold to Vino Vault, which uses Wine Owners. I’ve informed the new management that if they will no longer support CellarTracker (at least for me), my wine will soon be stored/managed elsewhere.

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It sure would be nice if the wineries would take the initiative to make sure their wines are set up correctly in CT before release. I think it would limit the number of listings for a single bottling and would hopefully reduce confusion. I try and enter all our wines before release, but forgot to do that with our 2020 Rose, which means there are now three different products for that one wine (which I need to email CT about to consolidate).

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U.S. wineries? Or do you expect global support?

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Just feel free to shoot a note at any time to editors@cellartracker.com and also see: Getting Started for Wineries - CellarTracker Support

I have will also flag your Rose for the team in just a moment.

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I too think it is a bad product. I don’t use it too much other than to send/receive wine from Domaine. I wish I could easily get the data from them and back into CT. Since I can’t I do it manually. It’s not a huge time suck but would be better if it had a sync function.

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When we have had threads before on things like what price do people put into CellarTracker, people on this board have had different answers. Some only put in the actual price of the wine. Others add sales and other taxes (e.g., VAT) and/or shipping costs. My sense is that there are other ways in which people customize information they put into CellarTracker to meet their personal needs. I would hope that any integration of these types would be done in a way that it allows people to opt out of doing this or to do things in a way where the information that goes into CellarTracker can still be customized by users to meet their own individual needs or preferences.

Thanks. Just bored at work and wine is so much more interesting than banking APIs. My wife is working on a product information master system and well I came up with this to think about.

Is there an import spreadsheet we could have on Cellar Tracker to help reduce the friction of data entry. But the big hurdle to that is getting the right iWine ID for each bottle. So that got me into search APIs.

Thanks for listening.

Yes we do have a bulk import mechanism, but it is more focused on initial load versus chronic use on an ongoing basis: Migrating From Another System - CellarTracker Support

Thanks. The automation of the fermentation step is what I guess I am asking. If the retailers/wineries could have the iWine ID validated and populated on a format that will align to a CT import, then the optional placement & comment elements are left to the user. When at shipping stage, the placement may not even be needed, but price, retailer, and iWine ID to get the right info ready for a barcode when delivered could help those with massive cellars.

I am thinking of the benefits for the customers that want to keep track of some good bottles but have consumed them soon. Not just for the collectors of wines that will be aged for a while.

Also it could be useful for restaurants and wine list management. This could help from the distributors into the restaurant’s inventory and wine list management. Extension of the other reviews information on a restaurant wine list to highlight some user or pro reviews may help restaurants sell more unusual wines to consumers. If you don’t know the variety or AVA you might not take a chance on that bottle normally, but after seeing some more info on it the restaurant highlighted from CT, you dive right in.

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