Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) For Wineries

USING THE DATA

Forecasting

- Frequently asked questions for Community Benchmark Forecasting

FAQ for WINERY ASSOCIATIONS

- Frequently asked questions for Winery Associations

What is Community Benchmark?

A state-of-the-art dashboard that presents your DTC sales data in a cohesive and clear manner that also allows comparison with your regional cohorts. This will help you better understand your unique trends and growth opportunities.

To learn more about Community Benchmark, check out the rest of this FAQ, our website, and this 60-second animated video here.

Why should wineries enroll?

This dashboard will assist in budget forecasting and give you the ability to maximize the impact of your DTC efforts, marketing spend, and winery operations.

What will it cost?

For wineries who are sponsored by their Association or state, the one-time set-up fee of $199 provides the basic subscription to Community Benchmark. The annual Community Benchmark subscription is sponsored at no cost to the winery.

What do wineries receive?

DTC Dashboard tracking tasting room fees, visitors and wine-club visitors, sales, wine club sign-ups, active members and shipments, e-commerce sales, distribution,
Monthly Reports with your personalized action items and regional overview. Sample Report
Insights Session – guidance on regional and individual winery unique growth opportunities.
Tailored regional DTC education workshops from collected data by the WISE Academy experts.

DATA SUBMISSION QUESTIONS

How do I Submit My Data?

We have a fully data and systems competent staff to assist you with all your data needs.

- - We have automated or semi-automated connection setups with WineDirect, Commerce7, OrderPort, eCellars, and VinSuite.
  - If you are not on one of these platforms, we will work with you to find the most streamlined process for your system.
  - If your POS provider has an API connection, we are open to establishing a new connection.
    - We simply need to be introduced to your representative of your POS provider.

Alternatively, we can also run the reports in your POS for you or accept spreadsheet reports.

What are the data requirements?

All metrics are opt-in, i.e. *not required*.

It’s a give to get model, so if you choose not to submit a metric, you will not see comparisons for that metric.

We have added # of Phone Orders & # Online Orders to the below:

Tasting Room Metrics

What metrics do you Benchmark?

We can benchmark the following metrics for your dashboard and reporting:

- - Tasting Room
    - Tasting Room Sales ($)
    - Purchases (#)
    - Visitors (#)
    - Purchase Conversion (%)
    - Sales per Purchase ($)
  - Wine Club
    - Shipment Sales ($)
    - Club Shipments (#)
    - Revenue per Shipment ($)
    - Beyond Shipment Sales ($)
    - Active Members (#)
    - Club Sign-ups (#)
    - Club Conversion Rate (%)
    - Revenue per Member ($)
    - Acquisition Rate (%)
    - Attrition Rate (%)
    - Net Growth Rate (%)
  - Digital+
    - Online Sales ($)
    - Online Sales per Purchase ($)
    - Phone Sales ($)
    - Phone Sales per Purchase ($)
  - Events
    - Off-site Event Sales ($)
    - On-site Event Sales ($)

What are the data definitions?

See these detailed description and definition of each metric.

What does the data entry process look like?

Initially we ask that you submit at least 12 months of historical monthly data so that you can receive year-over-year growth comparisons. (not required) After the initial upload, it is once per month to be submitted by the 10th. We publish reports on the 15th each month.

What does the automated data feed process entail?

It depends on your POS but, in general, we will need an account setup for Community Benchmark (takes 5 minutes in some systems to add a new user) and then we schedule a phone call to map our monthly metric categories to the categories in your system.

We currently have automated connections with WineDirect, Commerce7, OrderPort, and eCellar. If you are not on one of these systems, we can typically work out an efficient export / import process.

I’m not confident in my own data so what should we do?

Don’t worry we have to start somewhere. We will be able to guide you and recommend what customizations are necessary for us to accommodate your unique situation.

PRIVACY

No. We guarantee that no one outside of your company and ours will see your numbers. We only share aggregated averages of a group of at least four wineries.

How do you protect my information?

Our business depends on your privacy so we are buttoned up legally and technically. We have a Privacy Policy and we have a Data Protection Policy.

USING THE DATA

What are the main ways people use the data?

Knowledge and data are powerful tools to influence decision making in your winery so we find that telling the story of your winery through our comparative analysis has significantly more impact on your internal communications that simply comparing to yourself last year. Some examples of how wineries use our information:

- - 1. Being in the know of what’s going in your region and DTC
    2. Identifying growth opportunities and setting smarter goals
    3. Confirming or deny if your strategy is working for confident decision making
    4. Motivational communications with staff
    5. Managing expectations/goals with ownership.
    6. Board presentations

How do you ensure accuracy of the data in the system?

Overall we have been collecting, cleansing, and analyzing winery data for four years across hundreds of wineries.

Our Director of Operations has experience doing the same thing for Forbes, The New York Times, and several wineries and breweries.

Below are many but not all of the various data quality checks we utilize:

- - - On boarding: No data gets into Community Benchmark without our systematic and comprehensive review.
      - The definitions of each metric are displayed right next to each point of entry.
      - We perform all the automated mappings of our system to yours.. Many are standardized.
      - We ask each winery to review all numbers for accuracy.
      - For each winery, we analyze all statistics and trends and are able to easily spot issues and outliers.
    - Ongoing:
      - We have a monthly “Data Health Report” that algorithmically scans all data points across all wineries.
      - Wineries are asked to verify their numbers on a monthly basis.
      - Ongoing analysis and “Regional Insights” are scanned for issues and outliers.

Are we comparing apples to apples? Does every winery track it the same?

We have detailed data definitions that the whole community strives for as much as possible. There are however, some metrics with slight differences in tracking. In most cases, the winery will be able to standardize their tracking.

If a winery’s tracking a specific metric is substantially different, they are “opted-out” of that metric and their results are not submitted to the community benchmarks.

And finally, as our data scientist likes to say, “Precision is more important than accuracy.” If you are measuring Visitors slightly differently than another winery but you are consistently tracking Visitors in your way and they are consistently tracking wineries in their way, the same way every month, you and the other wineries will still be able to easily identify the months where your trend diverts significantly from their trend.

How do other wineries count visitors?

Our definition and best practice is to track every drinking age adult that walks through your doors that is a selling opportunity (i.e. no drivers). Many wineries count Tastings as a useful proxy for Visitors. Ultimately, as long as it is tracked in a consistent way, we will all gain the correct insights. Additionally, here is the authority Guest Count best practices.

What are the pricing options?

Pricing & Packaging Details

COMPARISON SET GUIDELINES

Winery Minimum — A comparison set must include a minimum of five participating wineries, not including the subject winery. The minimum number of properties must report data before performance data will be released.

Winery Composition — No single winery can account for more than 50% of the total participating Revenue of a competitive set, excluding the Revenue of the subject winery.

Comparison Set Changes

- - - Minimum of Two — A comparison set change must include a minimum of two consistently reporting wineries. The two consistently reporting wineries must be affiliated with a winery different from the requestor or the subject winery and cannot be affiliated with the same brand.
    - Non-Participating Winery Removal — If a winery stops reporting data for three consecutive months or more, the winery may be deleted from the set if all other conditions (minimum and composition) are still met.
    - A single winery cannot be added or removed.
    - Cannot exchange one winery for another. Updates must include at least two independent wineries being added or removed from the comparison set.

Multiple Competitive Sets Minimum of Two — If a winery has more than one comparison set, the composition of each set must differ by at least two consistently reporting wineries. The two consistently reporting wineries must be affiliated with a company different from the subject property and cannot be affiliated with the same brand.

A CHANGE MAY NOT BE MADE IF DATA OF A SINGLE PROPERTY IS ISOLATED IN ANY WAY.

FAQs for Winery Associations

Frequently asked questions for Winery Associations