shopify wine stores online

Is anyone using shopify as their platform for an online store?I have a few questions about using them that maybe you could help me with.
Is there away to change the look of the site? every site using them wine and other retail seem to look very similar.
More importantly is there away to integrate your inventory from your in store pos i.e quick books, liquor pos etc.?

I use Shopify for my musical instrument company, and the only reason it seems the wine shops have the same look would be that they choose the same or similar design format - probably one comes up when you search, one that matches ‘wine’.

I haven’t figured out how to integrate inventory from Quickbooks to Shopify, but I do like the program a lot, and the apps really are extensive.

I don’t know your particulars but I am not enthusiastic about Shopify if you are using it with a brick and mortar store. I run a boutique beer and wine store and I am pretty satisfied with Lightspeed. Lightspeed’s brick and mortar POS system and its e-commerce platform work seamlessly and for a good price. Unless a retail processing system is fully customized, the system will have its drawbacks and critics. I have done a ton of due diligence on this issue and could write endlessly about it (I know, I lead a singularly mundane life of which I am nevertheless very fond [cheers.gif] ) Feel free to PM me if you want to know more.

You can change the design via free themes and paid themes or design your own. It’s really simple and they have a great customization panel.

As for importing inventory, they have a few options as well as free and paid apps but I’m not sure if one of yours is available. It would have to be manually if not. They also don’t have a COG section so horrible for reports. That was the one issue I have with them.

FWIW, I use Volusion, a competitor of Shopify. I get the feeling I’m the only winery on Volusion, or at least I was when I started.

There’s a lot of flexibility of course in designing your site yourself, which I did many years ago when I signed up, and definitely didn’t break any design records :slight_smile: My site is super simple, plenty of intent to update, always in the weeds so never happened.

I have never had any serious issues with the platform performing --even on BerserkerDay with high volume. But if you want strong connectivity tools there are big frustrations. Like the triple entry requirement --Volusion, FedEx, Quickbooks. Now it’s possible that Quickbooks could integrate if you set it up right, if you maintain the most current version of Quickbooks at all times, and weren’t a sucker like me who is always giving special discounts that require manual entry and adjustment.

BUT my big frustration with Volusion is on the FedEx shipping front. As you would expect, Volusion has a direct link to your specific FedEx live rates, and Volusion has a button to instantly create a FedEx label. Yippee, except that the one-click “create FedEx label” will not allow the merchant to populate the “reference” field with the $AW (Alcohol-Wine) entry that is required by FedEx for wine shipping. So, you must manually re-enter every detail of Volusion orders into FedEx.com which is a horrendous time-consuming exercise.

My advice is if Shopify will allow you to either “check the alcohol box” or place the $AW code into the “reference” field, that would be a reason to choose them over Volusion. And if I’m behind and Volusion has added this ability, please share how you did it!!

A year or two ago, I went so far as to call the Volusion tech team and made a nuisance of myself asking them to simply add one more field (the “reference field”) to the integration software where I could enter $AW as a standard entry or add it manually with each order and they acted like I was a criminal involved in bootlegging and threatened to report me to their legal department and throw me off the site. It wasn’t pretty. There’s a lot of ignorance out there around wine shipping.

But in general, who wants to pay $500+/month for a wine-specific site when you’re a small brand, and Volusion is about $30/month for the basic functionality you need–a web site, ecommerce processing and space to put up photos etc. You just have to work around their lack of knowledge.

Emily, I am not sure this is still the case and alcohol can be shipped without the $AW being entered. See this page: https://smallbusiness.fedex.com/international/shipping-wine/resources.html

Under “Shipping Alcohol using fedex.com” specifically. Of course, there are other pages on the FedEx website which still say you need the $AW. I doubt there is any one person dedicated to making the information on the FedEx website consistent.

Hey Marc, thanks so much for the suggestion. I followed your link and looked under “Shipping Alcohol using fedex.com” with great anticipation. Yes, the Special Services section of a FedEx label has an “alcohol” box to check which is indeed a newer/legal alternative to placing $AW in the reference field (I use $AW because I can make it a standard entry to save time and not worry I’ll forget to check the alcohol box). Either method meets the FedEx rules for shipping alcohol. Sadly, neither is accessible via Volusion-Fedex interface. REally lame. Another box, right under “alcohol,” the “nonstandard packaging” box CAN be checked from the Volusion interface, but no ability to add a reference, nor check the ‘alcohol’ box. Wholly frustrating. So I do double-entry.

Gratefully more and more return customers so I can store their information in fedex.com “Shipping Manager.” Yay, Berserkers.

Appreciate your comment. Do you use Volusion?

No, I have not heard of Volusion before, sorry.