01 / Ecommerce + DTC
DTC is not a channel. It’s a customer.
Ecommerce strategy built around the customer, whether the transaction happens on your website, through the club, in the tasting room or at a retailer.
02 / The problem
Ecommerce is bigger than the winery website.
For years, winery ecommerce mostly meant DTC: drive someone to the website, convert the order, build the email relationship and, ideally, turn the customer into a member.
That still matters enormously. But it is no longer the whole digital commerce opportunity.
A customer can discover a wine through paid media, research the winery, visit the website, join the email list, buy the bottle from a local retailer and later visit the tasting room. Another might become a club member after first buying the wine through a retailer marketplace.
The systems record those as different customers and different channels. The customer doesn’t think that way.
The opportunity is to make better decisions across the whole relationship: where demand is created, where the transaction happens, what you can learn from it, and how that interaction contributes to long-term customer and brand value.
03 / The system
Six things that determine ecommerce performance.
Most wineries manage these as separate programs, often owned by different people. The customer experiences them as one relationship.
01 / Customer economics
What a customer or member is worth. What it costs to acquire one. How long the payback takes. How value changes by source, behavior and tenure.
In DTC, much of that relationship can be measured directly. Outside DTC, retail media, marketplaces and three-tier distribution require a different understanding of what the available metrics represent. Both matter. They should not be confused.
02 / Conversion
The path from interest to purchase, wherever that purchase can happen.
On winery ecommerce, that includes product discovery, shipping, state eligibility, age verification, allocation logic, member recognition and mobile checkout.
Conversion strategy increasingly means helping customers buy through the path that makes sense for them, not forcing every digital interaction toward the same checkout.
03 / Club + retention
For many wineries, the economic center of DTC and one of its most under-diagnosed programs.
Acquisition quality and retention are different problems. The important questions start after signup: Who stays? Who leaves? When? Why? And what happens before they do?
04 / Lifecycle + CRM
What happens between transactions.
Segmentation should reflect behavior and relationship, not simply list membership. A first-time ecommerce buyer, tasting-room visitor, longtime member and lapsed high-value customer should not experience the same marketing program.
The goal isn’t more email. It’s more relevant communication at the moments when it can change behavior.
05 / Merchandising + demand
What you sell, how you package it, when you release it and where a customer can buy it.
Bundles, allocations, library offers, shipping incentives and release sequencing matter in DTC. Retail availability, digital shelf presence and retailer media create another set of opportunities outside it.
The objective is to understand how channels can work together without sacrificing price integrity or brand positioning.
06 / Platform + data
Commerce. CRM. Email. Payments. Compliance. Retail data. Analytics.
The question isn’t whether you have enough technology. It is whether the systems support the customer experience and operating model you actually want, and whether the available data is being interpreted correctly.
Not every customer interaction can be connected perfectly. A useful strategy acknowledges those gaps rather than pretending they don’t exist.
04 / Point of view
Attrition compounds quietly.
Within DTC, club churn remains one of the clearest examples of why customer economics matter.
It rarely arrives as a crisis. It shows up as a slightly smaller shipment each cycle. A few more skips. A little more attrition after a price change or release. A strong tasting-room quarter or successful campaign can obscure it for a while.
Then enough time passes and the member base is materially smaller than the plan assumed.
One reason is measurement. Winery reporting often emphasizes revenue and new signups. Both can look healthy while the underlying customer base weakens.
Retention, tenure, cohort behavior and value over time tell you something revenue alone cannot.
Every member retained is also one less customer the business has to replace simply to stand still.
Related thinking: Selling Through Inventory Without Selling Out the Brand
05 / The work
Where I usually start.
Ecommerce + DTC diagnostic
A connected read of digital commerce, the DTC funnel, club performance and the customer economics underneath them.
Where is value being created? Where is it leaking? Where are customers trying to buy? What is the opportunity worth? And what should change first?
Conversion + path to purchase
Review of how customers move from interest to transaction, including winery ecommerce, mobile checkout, shipping, compliance, allocation, member recognition and opportunities to connect customers with retail purchase.
Club strategy + retention
Acquisition paths, member economics, tier structure, shipment cadence, member experience and the points in the lifecycle where intervention can meaningfully affect retention.
Lifecycle + CRM
Segmentation strategy, program architecture and automated journeys that carry the customer relationship between transactions.
Merchandising + inventory
Assortment, bundles, allocations, release sequencing and promotional strategy designed to balance near-term inventory needs with long-term price and brand integrity.
Digital retail + ecommerce
How retailer ecommerce, marketplaces and retail media can extend the digital path to purchase beyond winery-owned channels.
The objective is not to treat attributed retail sales as DTC revenue. It is to understand what digital activity can tell you about demand and how that information should influence investment.
Platform + vendor decisions
Independent evaluation of commerce, CRM, email and related platforms, including requirements, integration and migration planning.
No referral relationships. No vendor incentives.
Measurement
Customer cohorts, club health, ecommerce performance, digital retail signals and a smaller set of metrics leadership can use to understand whether the business is actually getting stronger.
06 / Experience
I’ve owned this number.
DTC isn’t an adjacent capability for me. I’ve been responsible for growing it.
Crimson Wine Group
Director, Digital & Revenue Marketing
Owned digital strategy, budget and execution across seven wine brands during a period when ecommerce revenue grew 2.5x, from $2.6M to $6.5M.
The work crossed acquisition, ecommerce conversion, CRM and lifecycle marketing, merchandising and the technology underneath them. We implemented Salesforce Marketing Cloud across 120,000+ subscribers and built a more connected digital customer experience across the portfolio.
J Vineyards & Winery
CRM & Digital Marketing Manager
Led CRM and digital marketing during a period when ecommerce revenue grew 51% over two years, with direct responsibility for that ecommerce revenue number. The broader work included migration to Salesforce, customer segmentation, lifecycle marketing, digital acquisition, club and DTC strategy.
Advisory + transformation work
I continue to work with wine businesses on ecommerce and digital transformation across DTC, marketing and technology, from customer journey and CRM strategy to platform modernization and migration.
That includes work with Commerce7 and enterprise Salesforce environments, giving me experience on both sides of an important question: how much technology does the business actually need?
07 / When this makes sense
The usual moment.
Club signups look healthy, but the member base isn’t growing.
Acquisition is masking an attrition problem.
Traffic is up. Revenue isn’t.
More demand isn’t translating into proportionate ecommerce growth.
A replatform is on the table.
The platform conversation has started before anyone has clearly defined what needs to improve.
Tasting room, club and ecommerce each report separately.
Everyone owns a channel. Nobody has a complete view of the customer.
Discounting has become the release strategy.
Inventory pressure is starting to dictate customer behavior.
Email runs on volume rather than relevance.
The database exists, but the segmentation and lifecycle programs don’t.
Or the business is performing reasonably well and you want to understand where the next meaningful increment of ecommerce or DTC growth can come from.
08 / Start a conversation
Have an ecommerce or DTC decision worth thinking through?
If the question sits somewhere between the customer, ecommerce, club, marketing and technology, let’s talk.