WTN Blog

WTN Services encourages your participation and attendance in the Consumer Direct Symposium Thursday and Friday, May 1-2, 2008, Meritage Resort, Napa, California Presented By Coalition for Free Trade and Free the Grapes!

WTN Services has signed on as a major corporate sponsor since this is a fundraiser in recognition of the work the Coalition for Free Trade and Free the Grapes has done on the front of consumer direct shipping.  We value their partnership and of course value the topics of this symposium and encourage anyone in the consumer direct wine sales or distrubution to attend, learn and partner.

To learn more about the symposium visit…

http://www.coalitionforfreetrade.org/symposium/index.html

 Topics for the symposium include…

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Friday, May 2, 2008

In a survey sure to spark debate and rally the wine retail world to more discussion is a study that was conducted by Alan Wiseman of Ohio State University and Jerry Ellig of George Mason University. They looked at the difference in prices of wine at brick and mortar stores in Northern Virginia and on the Internet before and after that state legalized direct shipment of wine.

According to the study a sampling showed price reductions of as much as 40% -a true win for the wine consumer.

You can download a copy of the Study from our friends and allies from the Speciality Wine Retailers Association of which we are founding members…

http://www.specialtywineretailers.org/documents/wiseman.pdf

Please join us in membership of SWRA.

Chris

WTN Services is thrilled to be a corporate sponsor of the third annual IBG Direct Sales Symposium- Bringing Down Barriers & Opening Opportunity.

We strongly encourage our clients, partners and anyone interesting in a better understanding the wine industry to attend. The Maximizing Consumer Direct Opportunities led by Mark Engel will be sure to drive thought. Other sessions include Brass Tacks: Sales and Marketing, New Frontiers -Growing Your Market Reach and Leveraging Change. All great topics. Paul’s Rethink team continues to lead the industry in sparking conversation and thought and are truely smart people everyone can learn from. Tomorrows events are at Copia 500 First Street Napa from 9 am to 5pm. We hope to see you there.

 Chris

One of the key benefits of working with WTN Services is our ability to leverage relationships and meet with those that will impact our industry and provide operational excellence for the long run. Today I was fortunate to be asked to a private breakfast with Rodger Marticke-Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Fed Ex Ground Corporation. Together with a few of his team members during his visit to Northern California we were able to meet, break bread and engage in thoughtful dialog.

The purpose of the meeting was to build a closer personal relationship and for him to have an opportunity to meet with a very high volume wine shipper and better understand our perception of wine industry wants and needs. WTN Services represents a large cross section of the wine industry with our services offering, variety of clients and bi-coastal fulfillment offerings out of our California and New York Distribution Centers. Our breakfast lasted for about an hour and a half and was lively and thoughtful.

I found Mr. Marticke to be very passionate about quality, expressing in detail steps that his company is taking to ensure continued market leadership and how they may better service the wine industry. I was thrilled to hear the similiarities in his business philosophy as compared to ours at WTN Services. His team has committed millions of dollars to upgrades that improve quality, faciliate less manual handling and ensure continued performance improvements in deliveries and effeciencies in services all the while maintaining an eye on profit. The commonality between Fed Ex and WTN Services is both see the value in investment, both as public companies operate with an eye on profitabiliy and performance while both understand the commitment to the customer is key. That investment is not unlike that of WTN Services with the upgrades in technology and infrastructure we are engaged in presently. Fed Ex Logistics Services uses many of the same technologies we are implementing thus positioning us to enhance services offerings through partnerships with vendors such as Fed Ex in the near future.

Mr. Marticke stressed the improvements in service supported by measuring and perfomance (QSI) Quality Service Index not unlike the SLA’s we have in place and measure perfomance against.

The common theme during our discussion was a mutual respect for one another, a mutual respect for our respective customers needs for continued quality improvement and metrics to support those improvements. I very much appreciated the opportunity to meet with Mr. Marticke today & appreciated the opportunity to speak on behalf of our clients and partners. Most important I look forward to future conversations and innovations from both WTN Services & Fed Ex that will drive quality and deliver even more operational excellence to our clients.

If you have further feedback that you would like communicated to the Fed Ex team please fuel that feedback to your WTN Services Account Management team, we will incorporate that feedback into future conversations.

To excellence!

Chris

Recently there has been comparatives and press articles in recent wine business publications on how to select a wine fulfillment provider and how they compare. Attached is our WTN Services White Paper. This white paper is produced as a “how to” in evaluating fulfillment services providers. It outlines what steps or homework you should do to make quality decisions in what best fits your business model. This paper is presented as “best practices” in vendor selection tips.

The key to any vendor selection is research and clearly defining what your needs are. The attached white paper provides recommendations of best practices in vendor reviews. Please feel free to use this tool when challenged to evaluate your fulfilllment needs.

Please email us or contact a WTN Services account manager 707.265.2933 with questions after reading the white paper on best practices in selecting a fulfillment vendor…

Matching Winery Needs to a Quality Fulfillment Provider…

March 29th, the Wimbledon Wine Company “got it” at the the Wine Enthusiast -Toast of the Town fundraiser at the San Franscico Opera House. At this event over 500 wine brands were pouring along side many of the areas greatest restaurants. The first two hours of the event was the VIP tasting featuring the best of each vendor and participants paid $185.00 per ticket to participate. Later in the evening the event was open to the general public with thousands attending. And Wimbledon got it as an example of best practices and building their potential client base.

How you ask?

Out of all the booths pouring wine and providing samples Wimbledon was the one that had a computer Kiosk on the table that enticed people to key in their email address.

Why is that important? Imagine the prospect of a person paying $185.00 to sip wine for two hours and capturing their name as a prospect to market your wines to. This person is qualified as a wine lover and has at least sampled your wines at an event to remember. The success to come from the innitiative to capture the names and email addresses at this function will be directly related to the follow-up campaign directed at those qualified leads.

Though we (WTN Services) are not privy to the number of names and email addresses Winbledon captured, we noted that two individuals signed up on the kiosk while we were by the table sampling.

WTN Services salutes Joshua and the Wimbeldon Wine Company team as our “Best Practices Spotlight Award” recepient of note. Way to go team to success and wine sales growth!

To learn more about Wimbeldon visit http://www.wimbledonwine.com/