Shopify has formed a strategic partnership with alcohol technology company DRINKS and membership platform Recharge to host the 2023 DTC Wine Symposium. The 16th edition of the annual event will feature workshop sessions to help e-commerce merchants tackle common challenges involved with online wine selling.
With technology providers like DRINKS and Recharge, wine merchants on Shopify can manage real-time compliance and tax solutions with much ease. Add to this, Recharge brings club solutions for wineries with its partnership.
Our groundbreaking real-time solution simplifies the complex regulatory landscape for wineries and retailers and allows them to focus on growing their online sales.
Zac Brandenberg, Co-Founder and CEO, DRINKS
What DRINKS Brings to The Table?
Thanks to the DRINKS app, alcohol merchants on Shopify get access to top-notch regulatory technology, which is trusted by national wineries and Fortune 20 retailers.
“We’re excited to unveil the next generation of beverage alcohol e-commerce and regulatory technology at the DTC Wine Symposium,” Zac Brandenberg, Co-Founder and CEO at DRINKS, said.
“Our groundbreaking real-time solution simplifies the complex regulatory landscape for wineries and retailers and allows them to focus on growing their online sales. Our partnerships with Shopify and Recharge add tremendous value to wineries with a safe, streamlined, and scalable solution for DTC sales,” he added.
Sell Alcohol Online!
In August, Shopify partnered with DRINKS to allow Shopify Plus merchants to sell wine on their online stores. Directly integrated with Shopify checkout, this app provides marketspace to wineries and retailers to expand their Direct to Consumer (DTC) business. The Shopify ecosystem promises these businesses a platform to “create, customize, scale, and monetize”.
“The days of substandard technology stifling DTC growth for our industry are over. DRINKS’ partnership with Shopify is a massive leap forward for tens of thousands of wineries and retailers who can now leverage DRINKS’ regulatory technology seamlessly within the world-class Shopify ecosystem,” Brandenberg had said at the time of the app launch.
To Cope-up With Changing Compilations
According to Pete Jones, Head of Wine and Spirits at Shopify, the solution provides a “real-time omnichannel commerce solution” to merchants amid ever-changing compilations.
“Shopify continues to support beverage alcohol merchants all over the world, from traditional local wineries to some of the largest global portfolios. Our ecosystem of partners offers a real-time omnichannel commerce solution for wineries to meet the evolving complexities of regulatory and tax requirements,” Jones said.
“With Shopify, wine merchants can leverage the platform that transacts 10% of e-commerce in the US to reach new audiences, build bespoke brands that resonate with customers via unique offerings, and future-proof their businesses. While macroeconomic conditions are rapidly evolving, forcing every business leader to re-evaluate existing solutions, Shopify and its vast ecosystem of agency and app partners continue to help lift the adult beverage industry to new heights,” he added.
About 2023 DTC Wine Symposium
At the 2023 DTC Wine Symposium, Recharge will explain the offered club management tools, which can be personalized to boost cart values. The club membership also aims at establishing long-term and close relationships with online buyers. Recharge will also demonstrate that the wine-tasting experience will be provided online.
“Recharge is focused entirely on merchants. Our robust subscription engine is now available to wineries to grow recurring revenue and create a powerful way to manage and expand customer relationships,” Lindy Crea, VP of Partnerships at Recharge, said.
“We are thrilled with the opportunity to partner with wineries to make their DTC channels work for them,” she added.
Shopify, DRINKS, and Recharge will host the event on January 18 and 19. On the first day, the companies will also host an invitation-only dinner for wine merchants. It will be an informal session for them to learn from industry experts. The dinner party will also help wine merchants on Shopify establish a network of professionals.
About DRINKS App
The DRINKS app is available for Shopify Plus merchants operating in the United States. It enables wineries to work as per DTC rules, calculate taxes and follow a set of regulations. The app comes with hundreds of pre-configured rules of compliance and tax rates that get updated automatically at the time of checkout.
The app also allows customization as per store requirements. It comes with dynamic features to attract consumers of the legal drinking age. The DRINKS app also helps merchants avoid selling non-compliant wines, showcase state-specific messages and ensure a certain limit of orders for each customer.
Not just that, wineries also get access to detailed reports on sales, which are automatically generated on the app, for state tax filings. Besides sales, DRINKS also summarises reports on credits and returns for merchants’ use.
DRINKS has an in-house retention and growth agency called Electriq to help wineries manage DTC sales. Electriq is also an agency certified by Shopify Plus and provides services related to marketing, design, tech stack optimization and integrations. Electriq works on the basis of customer experiences to help brands lower their costs of customer acquisition and increase a loyal customer base.
To Host Wine Tasting Events Online
While welcoming wineries to retail sell spirits, Shopify also roped in Evey Events as the app partner to manage tickets for wine tastings. Evey Events was recently acquired by StayTuned Digital.
Lauralynn Drury, VP of Experience at StayTuned Digital said in a tweet: “In time for the weekend, @shopify announced major moves in making it easy for wine retailers to manage & grow their ecom and IRL biz. Our app, @eveyevents was picked as an app partner to manage ticketing for tastings, reservations and tours. Cheers!”
🍷 In time for the weekend, @shopify announced major moves in making it easy for wine retailers to manage & grow their ecom and IRL biz. Our app, @eveyevents was picked as an app partner to manage ticketing for tastings, reservations and tours. Cheers! https://t.co/2IJv5EjUxz
— Lauralynn Drury (@lldrury) August 19, 2022
Evey is a Shopify app that enables merchants to sell tickets for online events using Shopify stores. Moonshot Games, Kpop Nite and 1Picasso100euros are among the prominent brands that use the Evey app. It claims to have helped more than 19,000 e-commerce websites to manage their events.
Evey also manages intellectual property rights related to live events. Some of its additional features include managing sales, check-ins and delivering tickets in PDF format.
The Founder Story
The Shopify app was started by Jason Normore in November 2013. Earlier, Normore worked as director of engineering at Shopify. Now, partnering with Shopify for its wine-selling business has come as an ultimate reward for Normore and his company. It is one of the 17 apps selected for merchants willing to sell wine on Shopify.
“We started Evey after personally hosting an event and hitting many roadblocks with the experience — from complicated set-up to inability to cross-sell our merchandise to taking over 1 month to get paid our ticket sales from our events platform. So, we took this frustration back to our computers and built Evey,” Normore said.
