March 17, 2023 – In 2006, Joe and Elliot Arking, brothers who owned a popular liquor store in South Jersey, decided on a whim to venture into the digital world to sell fine wine. That online world did not look anything like it does today. Neither the iPhone nor the iPad had been introduced. Consumers thought they were smart being able to text with their flip phones. It took an enormous leap of faith to launch an e-commerce site in those days, especially one selling wine. But the brothers already had high volume with extensive contacts in the industry. Encouraged by the second generation who solidly supported the expansion, the brothers gave it the green light. Since 2006, Wines ‘Til Sold Out, WTSO, has sold more than 26 million bottles of premium wine through flash online sales. Julie Blount, WTSO’s Executive Director of Marketing and Customer Service, has been with WTSO since the beginning. “It grew pretty rapidly. We had 100,000 customers within four years of starting,” Julie said to Chaîne during a Jan. 25 telephone interview.
Featured image above: Julie Blount, WTSO Executive Director of Marketing and Customer Service
Joe Arking now leads the company as CEO. In 2018, Elliot passed away but his passion for the business lives on as the small WTSO team continues to focus on offering customers the best deals and a superior customer experience. “The entire operation is strategized to keep low overhead so that we can pass on savings with our wine deals to the consumer,” Julie said.
As WTSO launched, the brothers asked Julie and one other employee to help with customer service and processing orders. “We worked around the clock. During holidays, we worked from 7 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m.,” she said.
Offering premium wine through flash sales did not mean the e-commerce website had to be flashy. Staying grounded in customer satisfaction, the WTSO team realized that what mattered most to people was the opportunity to purchase top quality wine. But the notion of “discounted” prices must be defined in context, Julie explained.
With total focus on sourcing wine for their deals from large and small producers at world-renowned wineries and from world-renowned winemakers, WTSO’s sale prices are usually higher than retail prices of lesser quality wine on the mass market. It’s important for people to understand that nuance, Julie said. Overall, the WTSO customer is very knowledgeable about wine so they quickly recognize value. But new visitors to their website can be surprised WTSO prices do not equate to mass market discounts.
The wine is always the top priority. Criteria in both quality and quantity drive WTSO purchase decisions. “We must be able to have enough inventory to fill the demand of over 500k customer accounts,” Julie said. The buying team seeks lesser known wineries located in regions recognized for superior terroir.
It may seem as if handling the sale of thousands of bottles of wine online would require a large IT department but WTSO has a lean team of three people who handle everything in house. When a computer glitch occurs, they own it and solve it.
Reflecting on the early days of the business, Julie remembers one sale in particular when BV Tapestry canceled their deal after WTSO had already sold hundreds of bottles of wine. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise. Because e-commerce technology was in its infancy, they had no other option but to call each customer to explain the situation and why they had to issue a refund. As technology improved, lessons learned from that episode still reflect their policies today. They have leveraged technology where it can be best utilized but have not abandoned the analog world of humans talking with humans.
“Our customer base grew based on our one-to-one interaction with customers, really taking our time to customize each member’s experience. Starting early on in e-commerce, we knew having a policy with little to no risk to the customer would only help grow that trusting relationship with our customers. From day one we stood behind every bottle, and made sure that each shipment was delivered without any issues. In the wine shipping industry it can be tricky at times to receive your delivery due to the signature requirements. We will customize delivery to help make that experience as seamless as possible. To this day we will organize shipments to arrive when convenient for customers and over the years, have developed many programs like Long term storage to A Case Club membership, which allows customers to hold wine for a long term in our temperature-controlled warehouse. For every case shipped, customers earn rewards,” Julie said.
There are humans involved every step of the way. Each team member who interacts with customers is trained in all aspects of the business so they can answer questions about the wine or shipping. There is no ‘Dial 1’ for this issue or ‘Dial 2’ for that issue, Julie added. “It’s a great user experience if people do try us out.”
About 70 percent of their marketing effort can be attributed to word-of-mouth recommendations, a phenomenon that began in 2006 when Joe’s sister-in-law spread the word about the new site to her colleagues working on Wall Street.
Steadily growing through the years, it wasn’t until the business began declining a bit just before the pandemic that they turned to data mining to better understand their customer base. During growth, they were simply fulfilling orders and buying wine, Julie said. Now they use data science to analyze customer retention and churn to define new marketing strategies.
As they ramped up their data mining efforts, something outside of their control impacted their business in a significant way. When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, WTSO experienced a 20 percent growth. “It was amazing but obviously, it was a tragic thing. While people were unable to leave their homes, online ordering in general grew rapidly. We were able to reach far more savvy wine drinkers due to the amount of people that were almost forced to order most of their supplies online. People who were only shopping in stores were now online trying to find the world’s classic wines. I think our affordable free shipping threshold and fast shipping turnaround made it even more convenient for online shoppers,” Julie explained.
As a sponsor of both the 2021 Grand Chapitre in Nashville and the 2022 Grand Chapitre in San Antonio, Julie is proud WTSO offers a vast array of highly rated labels to Chaîne members whom she describes as a world class wine enthusiasts. “The great success of our national events would not be possible without valued partners such as WTSO. Their commitment to high quality and knowledge of the wine industry perfectly supports Chaîne’s mission. We look forward to our ongoing collaboration with Julie and her WTSO team,” Kevin Dunn, Executive Director, Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, said.
Because technology moves at such a lightning fast pace, today WTSO is trying to encourage more customers to use an app they developed. Younger people do not want to be bothered with a deluge of emails but that is WTSO’s primary way of communicating their flash deals to their customers. As its operational core, they send out five emails per day to each of their almost 300,000 active customers to keep them informed of deals and discounts. They certainly cannot abandon that way of reaching their customers but realize they must actively engage new generations of wine drinkers who interact with technology very differently from their traditional customer. The WTSO app is a valuable tool in their 2023 marketing toolkit. Keeping abreast of user trends with technology is essential as their success over the years motivated others to enter the flash sale space. “The industry is a lot more saturated than it was 17 years ago,” Julie said.
Never content to stand still, the WTSO team is thinking beyond email and apps to engage younger generations by directly connecting with them.
Launched in August 2022, the WTSO Premium Wine Club opens up new channels of connecting with customers. With 388 members, each member receives a surprise selection of two to three bottles of premium wine each month that includes a virtual tasting seminar, via Zoom, with experts. The 90-minute to two-hour session is held in the evening on the second Thursday of each month. “They’re really fun,” Julie said. “I think people enjoy the social aspect of being with other wine lovers and having conversations.” And through the power of technology, participants can connect with friends across the country and make new friends who share a passion for wine.
The WTSO team’s early experiences selling wine online laid the foundation for a successful business today. But that was not a foregone conclusion as many, many companies decided to lower overhead by replacing customer service representatives with artificially intelligent software. Smart businesses recognized there was no replacement for a human quickly helping another human solve a problem.
That aspect of WTSO’s business alone is worth a toast, all the better poured from a deeply discounted bottle of premium wine!
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