Digital Wine Ventures partners with Vivino wine marketplace to streamline online buying experience

Digital Wine Ventures’ (ASX: DW8) beverage platform WineDepot has completed the technical integration and onboarding phase of a partnership with Vivino Hong Kong Limited, the developer of mobile app and online wine marketplace Vivino.

The integration means WineDepot can now provide Australian wineries with the ability to directly list their products for sale on Vivino without having to set up an account, develop an IT integration, monitor their inventory availability, or manage their order fulfilment.

Instead, their products will be automatically uploaded via WineDepot Direct – a new part of the integrated trading and logistics platform, which allows suppliers to market their goods across a broad range of direct-to-consumer sales channels.

Higher margins

WineDepot chief executive officer Dean Taylor said the partnership allows producers to generate higher margins and take control of their brand within the rapidly-growing online sales channel.

“Our partnership provides Vivino’s users with more product choice and an unparalleled buying experience [and] for us, it provides us access to a powerful direct-to-consumer sales channel that allows the wineries we work with to generate incremental and high margin sales,” he said.

“If you want to understand what the future of online wine sales looks like, then Vivino is the one to watch – its mobile-first approach is a key differentiator and when combined with 10 years of accumulated user-generated content and over 1.5 billion wine label scans, [it] puts the company in an enviable position.”

Shift to online

Having launched its marketplace business in 2015, Vivino last year helped 700 independent businesses sell over US$265 million (A$340 million) of wine as consumers around the world made a significant shift to online purchasing.

With 50 million users across 17 countries including Australia, the company’s wine shopping experience uses community data to suggest personalised wine recommendations, easing the discovery of new products for wine drinkers at every level of expertise.

Orders are picked, packed and delivered by WineDepot, allowing Vivino’s community of users to purchase across multiple suppliers at the same time while taking advantage of same and next day delivery services in locations where those services are available.

Vivino recently raised US$155 million (A$200 million) to expand its presence in key global markets and improve its technology.

WineDepot expects to make the Vivino integration available by the second quarter of 2021.