Wine Club Software for Small Producer (Cheap but powerful?)

Cellar Rats (ITB)
21

Quick lookup: https://www.qbwinerysolutions.com/california-sales-tax/

Just a quick search, I can find more. I know I spent some time a while back when setting up our Shopping Cart and coded/configured the web site. Not sure who files your reports and taxes, on our end I do all of that and try to keep track of what’s really required, and not. CA will happily take all the “excess” sales tax you report and turn over, of course. If you are the one filing sales tax reports for CA state, then you should be familiar with how reporting starts: At first you report your BASE CA State sales tax, %7.25. And only then are asked to additionally report any sales tax collected above base. If any collected, then all of it is reported and then submitted to CA. Outside of wholesale/distributor/out of state DtC customers’ sales, of course. Which also prompts another pointer. None of out of CA state DtC sales are required to collect CA state sales tax. Out of state DtC sales taxes all depend on states of delivery and how you are set up with them, you then report/submit separate reports to those other states, if need be. But charging and collecting CA state has nothing to do with out of state DtC sales, thus a separate box when filing CA sales reports. You probably know this, just pointing out some other little things for the small guys and DtC sales.

You’re right, though, CDTFA should really make this info more readily available, and understood. But, I am sure, they don’t mid collecting more :slight_smile:

22

Would you like to make your system available for use?

I have not been coding since 77, so some of this seems like it might not be as easy for me as it is for you.

23

Thanks. I see what you mean. The ShipCompliant article linked in the article you cite is pretty on point. BTW my email to CDTFA on this subject was met with the promise of a response within 20 days.

24

I came across a link a while ago, and right before they applied the new rule. But it was not that widely “advertised” by CDTFA. A few software providers were good enough to follow the new law and apply code changes, very easy implementation that takes very little time. But many did not, and many small wineries have no idea, either, since CDTFA never really sent notices out, as they should have had IMO. Unless I missed one, which I don’t think so.

25

Actually, very easy. Its mostly PHP code, I never worked with it before, but I only added a few snippets here and there since I am very particular in how things fit together and work :slight_smile: But, in general, its not that bad. Both WordPress and WooCommerce come pretty much ready to go out of the box. Plenty of WordPress themes out there, many paid (up to $100 one time charge), some free. I tried a few paid, and was not impressed with performance or not having ease of modifications I wanted. Or having bugs. Turned out the best commerce enabled theme, by far IMO, is free, shame I only came across it later. Look up OceanWP, they have almost 30 different layouts, some with Shopping Cart (Woo built in), and, really, one can easily just go with one of them out of the box, if need be. Most people do. I wanted a particular monochromatic look, so I spent a few days on getting that done, never really worked with Illustrator and Photoshop before, so that took a bit of time. Code wise, again, mostly free plugins, some PHP and CSS snippets, which took me a few days to search for online. And I wanted a different background on every page, so more graphics, and my time. And if you look at the mailing list sign up box, its transparent letting background though, also took a few hours for me to figure out, but, again, something that spoke to me for the chosen theme.

One benefit of WP+Woo bundle is that it drives a huge number of sites around the globe and this leads to plenty of info sharing between coders. Plenty of shared code examples and tutorials as well. Every time I wanted some new feature I was able to find a ready made solution someone else already coded, and shared.

I then also spent some time on taking some features out to streamline how the site allows for a quick and easy way to order. And have an age verification checks. Again, all free code/plugins, for the most part. I have payment gateway plugins for Stripe, Square and PP all installed and configured, and one can simply switch from to another in seconds, literally. I HIGHLY recommend free Wordfence Security plugin, or paid one for $40 that are rock solid in protecting against hacking/access to your site, I see people trying to hack or (mostly) login very often, and Wordfence stops it and reports it weekly. I can give you a list of plugins I installed and run with, no issue.

All in, as I mentioned before, 2 weeks flat, and that included a learning curve for WP+Woo+Illustrator+Photoshop.

Look up OceanWP, and check out their demos. I am sure you’ll like at least one of them enough. And most likely recognize a few as you travel through winery sites afterward :slight_smile: They are all mostly WP+Woo. Not much coding required with OceanWP, pretty much install and then add/configure your store offerings. And I can guide you along. You can install WP+Woo+server locally (on your home machine) as host, to try and configure the site before you upload it. Or you can set a staging environment on hosting service (they all do that) and try all of the code that way before moving it to production, they will also assist you with that if need be. Local machine setup for WP+Woo+server is all free and easy to setup/configure.

As for porting my site over, should be easy if someone likes the layout and features as they are. Just not sure I have the time to take a better look at what’s involved, but don’t think much save for graphics, mostly (and only if required). Need to chew on that, I’ll post a better explanation of why I decided not to offer coding/maintenance services at a later time, and can give you some numbers that I had to work with when reaching that decision.

26

Hey Greg, not trying to get into a leg-lifting contest!

By way of level-setting, I started coding in 1967, still write code today, and am the guy who created QuickBooks. I’ve worked with literally tens of thousands of small business owners over the course of my career. And I’ve built a $2.5 million DtC winery from scratch (including building the buildings myself and working the vineyards and olive groves, as well as hospitality and winemaking), so I have a pretty solid understanding of the wine industry – including what works and what doesn’t.

The system we’ve built is designed to encapsulate all that learning.

All that said, I agree 100% with you: one can assemble a narrow solution quite inexpensively if one feels that the savings are worth the allocation of one’s time, and if the cost of higher-level functionality isn’t justifiable. A Woo+WP site works just fine, as long as simple ecommerce is the objective.

But growing a successful DtC business requires a lot more. For example, maintaining (and deepening) the relationship with each customer over time is key (research shows that it costs 5X as much to acquire a new customer as to retain an existing one); that activity benefits from good systems (a.k.a. tools), which again can be found piecemeal for not very much.

But doing so creates the next hurdle: gluing all those bits of information together. You’ve been writing code long enough to know that one of the fundamental rules of good software is “if data is in two places, at least one of them is wrong.” So again the question: even assuming you have the skills, is it worth your time to be in the data synchronization business? Or would that time (and mental energy) be better spent growing your main business?

Ultimately, it boils down to answering the question, “Where do I want to get?” What are your goals for your business, and what are you good at? Successful businesses focus on their strengths, and turn to others (people and system) for everything else.

The list of reasons to use a third-party system are many. And Captina isn’t the only solution (though I happen to feel it’s head-and-shoulders above the others, and both honestly and reasonably priced).

If it isn’t right for you, I take no offense (as I said, we often point wineries with really simple needs to Woo + WP).

For the record, btw,
(1) we never take a cut of revenue or a per-transaction fee; I find that practice reprehensible.
(2) our price is clear and fixed, and includes full support and training; no surprises, and guaranteed locked-in forever.

Thanks for sparking a good discussion!

27

Ridgeley - how is your software integrated into existing platforms? Let’s say I have a winery page on Squarespace (like I do), then at what point and how do the sales end up in your sphere? In Orderport, the minute you click on to add a wine into your checkout basket, they take over and you’re in actuality on their system by that point. They basically make a page that mimics the design you had in Squarespace (or whatever platform you’re on, Shopify, Wix etc). Is that how you do it, too? If so, is that “mimicing porting design” cost part of the monthly fee, or do you have to pay extra for web designers to do that?

For me, it’s very important that the shopping is seamless from a design perspective. I hate when I’m on a really nice site, then when I click on a product to purchase, I get taken to some generic software generated buying site that has a completely different design.

As a winery solely on Squarespace at this moment I must say it works pretty well and there are some powerful features there - and the design carries all the way through. The problem is that there is no way to create or maintain a membership club with allocations etc in a good way. You can either have the customers “subscribe” to a wine or wine selection (i.e. club), but you can’t customize anything and you can’t allocate. Also, you have no access to customers payment info, or ability to classify the most loyal customers etc. It’s a bit limited.

28

I got ahold of someone at CDTFA on the phone, and, after some lengthy searching, they decided that a physical presence in any district or city in CA triggered the application of that district or city tax rate, regardless of the $500,000 sales threshold. Most of the discussion of that threshold has to do with determining the status of out-of-state sellers into CA. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to help small in-state sellers. Here’s the pertinant line from the CDTFA site-- “Retailers that do not meet the $500,000 threshold are still engaged in business in any district(s) in which they have a physical presence.”
The CDTFA person I spoke with also said that I would be reponsible for any local taxes applicable at CA shipping destinations. Again, regardless of the $500,000 threshold. I’m not sure that’s the last word on that. There is this example from the CDTFA site that suggests that the $500,000 threshold might be relevant to the determination of whether you have to charge/report/pay all the local taxes outside your home district;

"Example 2 – Retailer with a retail location in California and registered with the CDTFA

You are a retailer located inside California with a single retail location in Los Angeles County, but not in a city that imposes a district tax. Most of your sales are made at your Los Angeles location, but you occasionally ship merchandise by common carrier directly to your customers throughout California. During calendar year 2018, your total sales of merchandise at your Los Angeles location and for delivery directly to your customers throughout California exceeded $500,000. You do not have any physical presence in other cities in Los Angeles County or to districts outside of Los Angeles County other than by shipping merchandise via common carrier to your customers. You collect the Los Angeles County and Los Angeles County MTA district transactions (sales) taxes on all sales made at your location.

For your sales prior to April 25, 2019, you were not considered engaged in business in any cities imposing a district tax or in any districts outside of Los Angeles County and you were not required to collect any district use tax on sales delivered to your customers in other districts.

However, beginning April 25, 2019, you are a retailer engaged in business in all districts in California pursuant to RTC section 7262. As such, in addition to the statewide tax rate of 7.25 percent, you are required to collect the applicable district use tax on all your taxable retail sales."

The point here is that this retailer exceeded $500,000, and that seems to be a precondition for his being “required to collect the applicable district use tax on all your taxable retail sales.”

29

Excellent, thoughtful questions, Adam.

We’re in the final process of adding support for Squarespace, which honestly I think is a much more “maintainable” public-facing website system than Wordpress. The integration will cover not just e-commerce and allocations, but also club member signup and self-management, product landing pages, and our reservation/RSVP system. Figure that’s about 45 days out.

The way to think about it is that the public-facing portion of your system is a branding platform, and needs to have both a cohesive look-and-feel and a high level of customizability, so that’s how we treat it. But everything actually happens in our database, not Squarespace’s (or [other system]). For example, the webstore is actually ours, but it’s woven seamlessly into the Squarespace site, and has a lot of flexibility in terms of look-and-feel.

The heavy lifting of order management, business operations, club runs, etc., happens in the back-end, and needs to be efficient and easy to use.

Happy to walk you through it if you’re interested…

30

Ridgley, as you pointed out, I am not here to get into a pissing match. Simply want to point out that there are other, way more affordable options out there for small guys. With built in features that match yours, in the end,

First, and, to point out the obvious, I did not imply that YOU charge your customers transaction fees. But I did see some that do, and find the practice abhorrent, sure. Simply preying on unsuspecting small guys who do not know any better.

Second, not going after your or anyone else’s business, I am NOT looking for customers, had my fill of IT by now, just pointing out to others there are different choices in achieving online presence. Especially for those on a shoestring budget until a certain point of growth where service such as yours may become a better choice for some.

Thus… My chiming in, not for first such thread to be clear.

Not sure what double databases you are talking about, we have just one, and it has every customer and sale and related info (sans customer’s credit card info, since I decided to eliminate this option for greater security and privacy of our customers). Even IF we ever get hacked no payment info will be available, and I sleep better at night. Even our payment processor is set up in such a way that actual credit card number is “invisible” to us, just the last 4 digits for tracking, if need be. I certainly do no do any “sync up”. At all.

And since you want to compare apples to apples, and as I am asking for that as well, for days now, I would STILL want to see the $$$$ involved when someone hires you, or some other software house, to run an online store. Our monthly maintenance cost, “tools” and all, is $10 per month, plus credit card fees (unavoidable). Sure, I spend a bit of time per month upgrading plugins, when needed, but it takes all of a click to do that after WordFence sends me an email notice that something needs an upgrade. Up to me, and in many cases I can ignore for a while. Again, pretty much free save for my time to log in and do a few clicks. WordFence also sends me notifications and reports notifying me of all attempts at hacking the site. Yes, many try, as you know :slight_smile:

How much would a winery pay for your services, at the minimum, for “setup and configuration”, and then monthly?

We can talk all we want, but in the end numbers matter. Feel free to disclose the numbers on your end, or this entire discussion is meaningless. Despite the glorified “tools” and “customer retention” you keep mentioning.

As I said already, if a winery decides to go with a software house like yours, sure, its their decision and, of course, there may be reasons for that. Understandable, since we all operate and make decisions differently. But you keep on talking up “customer retention” and whatever other “tools”, when for small wineries that really translates into producing a worthwhile product that keeps customers happy and willing to keep coming back. Sure, customer relations are extremely important, but most small guys do that in any case last time I checked, and no amount of “tools” will improve that. Personal interaction with customers is the way for small guys to grow, and most do that via email and/or phone calls, or winery visits/tastings. And no number of “tools” will retain customers if products do not merit that to begin with, or a winery acts like jerks upon a visit scheduled via your “calendar appointments tool”. And with small guys, customers usually directly email or call for an appointment, again, a personal interaction even prior to a tasting/visit taking place, how would a “calendar tool” improve on that when, in fact, it makes it a less personal interaction, and just an extra step in the process. All for the privilege of paying $$$ for the “tool” than does nothing in the end. All of our customers have access to us, and reach out directly.

I put our numbers on the table, up front. Sure, I coded and spent some of my time, which should really be translated into $$$$. For a one time setup/configuration, so, yes, its a cost. Feel free to use an hourly rate of your choosing, for the 2 weeks of my time, and plug the number in. I haven’t done any consulting work for the past 20 years or so, and have no idea what the hourly rate may be these days for WP+Woo. But, let’s be fair, and add, say, 100 hours on the max on my end, as setup/configure cost.

Again, small guys can easily avoid the effort I invested in, BY CHOICE, and use a free Woo theme and then simply add their products to the shop, add a payment gateway of their choice (free), and let it rip. Not much effort, nor time. Maybe not as “fancy and nice” (to our eyes) as what we ended up with, again by choice, but a solid and workable online presence right out of the box. So, MY cost of setup/configuration is, just as yours, a choice for a winery to make. But, in my case it is this hefty investment is fully avoidable, if a winery starting out doesn’t have the funds to do so from the get go. Is yours?

So, $$$$$ wise, post some numbers. Minimums. Let’s compare apples to apples since you’re doing your best avoiding the discussion so far.

And, actually, feel free to point out any small winery that has more features than we do, even after paying hefty up front and then monthly fees. I bet at least 95% do not. Yes, I haven’t added a mailing/club options yet, but I bet I can add a plugin and be done in a few hours, at worst. So, again, maybe $50-75 plus my time. ONE TIME.

31

Hey Greg – first, I hope we cross paths on the physical plane at some point. You sound like an interesting guy.

On the $$$ front, my apologies: I thought I’d put that out there before.

We charge $350 per month, plus $30/month for each additional user. That’s it. No upfront fees, no consulting, no nada. Full support and ongoing training included. That also includes all features (you can see the full set, more or less, at Priced to help you grow — CompleteDTC: Direct sales tools, along with clear, unambiguous pricing – and the ability to see what others charge).

Credit card processing fees are, of course, extra, though we’ve negotiated a rate that most find better than they’re able to get on their own (we have a policy of complete transparency, and never take a cut of anything).

If a client wants to take the opportunity to update their website (most do), that’s on them; we don’t get involved.

As an analogy (one which I understand, as QuickBooks was actually the 4th accounting system I built), one can do bookkeeping just fine using Excel. After all, it’s just debits and credits.

I’ve done it, just to see what it was like; it’s not awful. But for most people, it’s generally not a good use of their time, so they opt to use software that someone else has developed, that does more, better.

A final point, on DtC: yes, if you’re producing a few hundred cases a year then it’s more a hobby than a business. You don’t need tools: heck, you probably only need a working telephone and a shoebox.

But after 25+ years in the wine business, I’ve come to understand that there are plateaus of profitability (and resilience), starting around 700-1000 cases and topping off at ~8,000-10,000; after that, you enter the minefield laid by the big guys. At those levels – especially if you can be primarily DtC – a well-run winery business can be nicely profitable, and sustain not just you and your family but also some employees.

Note, though, that a typical wine club member buys one case a year, so a 750-case winery will need about 750 members, and will need to acquire new ones at a rate sufficient to offset the natural attrition (typically 25%-45%). That’s not a simple undertaking.

I would therefore submit, your Honor, that if that kind of business is your aspiration, it makes sense to invest in good tools in the vineyard, in the winery, and in the office and hospitality environment.

But yes: you can use a phone and a shoebox, too. [cheers.gif]

32

Only $22,850 per month for a 750 member mailing list/club?

33

Ha!

“user” does not mean “customer”.

It’s $350/month for the full system, which includes one system user (e.g. you); if there’s more than one person who will use the system at a time, or whose performance you want to track separately (e.g. a tasting room employee, or a wine club manager), they’re $30/month each.

There’s never a charge per-customer or per-transaction etc.

34

Got it, makes sense now.

35

Just to add a new software platform that I do not think was mentioned before is Commerce7 … https://commerce7.com/ . This is a winery specific ecommerce platform that deals with POS, club memberships, targeted information, reservations & other. It gets embedded to your Wordpress website so purchases can easily be made when people visit your site. It can be a stand alone solution or they have also integrated with other winery production platforms including the newer Ekos system and that system integrates with accounting software(Quickbooks & Xero). Some of these newer tools eliminate spreadsheet use and can generate a wide range of reports as needed. I only hope the software companies keep a lower cost structure for smaller wineries.

36

Ridgeley - does your solution allow allocations and “wish list” allocations? I basically would eventually like to model my DTC the same way Bedrock does theirs, as I think it’s a great system.

BTW, does anyone know what software Bedrock uses?

37

Thanks for asking, Adam. Let me start by saying I’m smitten by your story and approach to wine. I’m guessing we share sensibilities pretty deeply.

The short answer to your first question is “yes and.” Probably best to set up a call to see if what we do fits what you need.

FYI, we’re in beta on a profound reimagining of compliance (wine license; sales tax; age verification) that reduces cost for smaller wineries by thousands of dollars per year. We’ve also added Squarespace as a CMS if you want to keep your site hosted where it is.

PS: I dug around a bit on their site, and found that Bedrock uses a system called Figure (https://www.commercebyfigure.com/). Elegant stuff; remarkably expensive; less functionality.

38

Incidentally, Adam, you may want to look into how Squarespace is characterizing your shipping fees. TTB is pretty strict about the use of the word “free” in conjunction with the promotion/sale of alcohol. “Complementary shipping” or “shipping included” are alternatives that they allow, among others, but “free” is never ok.

39

Hi Gary,

Thanks for posting about this option. Are you using it? If so, how do you like it? Anyone else using this?

Thanks!

40

Hi Andrew - At the moment I’m not as we do not have our bond yet. However, that said I’ve been paying attention to what’s out there and how different software applications integrate with each other from accounting and production workflows through to sales and shipping.