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December 2016 WINES&VINES 17 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS Visit JSC Booth #906 at the Unified Symposium! www.JimsSupply.com In-House MANUFACTURING ment services, marketing and other services. "At any given time on our site, we have hun- dreds of wines for sale in our various shops," Westfall said. "We see most of our revenue these days coming from the shops and not the new wines that we have launched that day." A spokesperson for WTSO said their num- bers on offers were much different but did not want to comment further. Jason Sieber, "Agent Red" with Wine Spies, said the website's offers have increased this year. "As for 'less wine' available, we have not seen this to be the case. Supply is stron- ger than ever," he said in an email. Rich Bergsund, CEO of Wine.com, told Wines & Vines in an email that consumers seem to appreciate a little more to the experi- ence of buying wine than just price. "Over the years, we arrived at the conclusion that there is a ceiling on how much wine you can sell with a 'push' method, lacking any real personalization or factoring in of people's individual tastes," he said. "If you have a great price, which was probably more true in the wake of the recession, sometimes that makes up for it and people will buy just to try it out." He said price discounts are still marketed on Wine.com, but the company has found growth is more driven by the website's wide selection and "then helping people find wine that fits their particular tastes." In the case of Wine.com, this is done through live chat sommeliers and by using consumers' ratings of the wines they buy to suggest other wines through email offers and while they're perusing the site. "This type of service out-performs flash sales, es- pecially in customer loyalty, hence we said goodbye to WineShopper and handle all of our selection and service through our core Wine.com site." DtC sales totaled $2.2 billion in the 12 months through September, and there is no indication that will slow as more wineries see sales in their tasting rooms, wine clubs or online as a key to profitability and growing sales. It remains to be seen if flash websites will be part of that growth. Tammy Boatwright, president and founder of the DtC consultancy and management firm VingDirect, said her clients don't see them that way. "For our clients, flash sites are defi- nitely used only as a means to move long inventory," she said. This perception hasn't changed because of the lower margins and long-lasting "virtual footprint" of the steep discount that lingers long after the sale. "For wineries focused on building brand value, these sites are rarely a good option," she said. "There are options other than flash sites which move larger vol- ume that, in my opinion, aren't so destructive to brand image." —Andrew Adams "Over the years, we arrived at the conclusion that there is a ceiling on how much wine you can sell with a 'push' method, lacking any real personalization or factoring in of people's individual tastes." —Rich Bergsund, CEO of Wine.com