A VineSpring Story
Failla Wines
Failla Wines goes by the beat of their own drum. In a sea of cabernet and other warm-weather grapes, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another winery in the Napa Valley so invested in their cool-climate, single-vineyard chardonnay, pinot noir, and syrahs.
Regarded as one of the first natural winemakers in the valley, Failla’s owner and winemaker, Ehren Jordan, is still incredibly involved in every area of the winery. His team is small but mighty. They get nerdy about growing, creating, and serving delicious, sustainable wine. The way they look at it, it’s not just a job; it’s a passion and one that can serve the earth as well as their customers.
The Challenge
People have taken notice of Failla, and they now have tasting rooms in both St. Helena, California, and Salem, Oregon. Failla’s tasting experience has always been intimate, educational, and hospitality-focused.
Before the pandemic, Failla had no interest in selling their wine online. They liked the face-to-face interactions experienced in the tasting room, the relationships they built with club members, and enjoyed two successful allocation releases a year.
“I never thought we’d see the day when we sold wine online. But then 2020 changed everything.” - Janelle Engel, Failla DTC Manager
Not only was Failla facing tasting room closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, they also had wildfires come within three feet of their structures—disrupting their storage facilities and making club and allocation order pick-ups impossible. Through all of the hardships, it was clear that to continue selling wine to their customers, Failla needed to do it online and ship it DTC.
Failla also needed to update the way that they managed their clubs and allocations. They have numerous club offerings, run a very active allocations program, and were seeking an efficient and reliable tool to help with the load.
Years ago, Failla adopted an all-in-one system to help manage their clubs, allocations, POS, etc. It proved to be expensive and overly complicated for what they needed. They wanted a simple system that fit their business needs with support that rose to the occasion when they needed help.
The Solution
Failla left their all-in-one platform behind and searched for best-in-class options that would give them the flexibility to choose tools they needed without being weighed down by the ones that they didn’t.
With VineSpring and Square, Failla found the partners they were looking for and onboarded to VineSpring V2 back in 2017. Both platforms were user-friendly and highly functional. Square was a huge asset in the tasting room with the ability to make checkout seamless and VineSpring streamlined their club and allocations processes. Plus, the exceptional support was a huge advantage.
“With our previous platform, I’d leave a message for support and just hope that someone would eventually get back to me. With VineSpring I know I’ll get someone who will jump in and help me solve a problem. ” - Engel
But, with Failla’s changing needs and journey into eCommerce in 2020, they saw the advantages of upgrading to V3, the newest version of VineSpring. By upgrading, Failla could stick with a platform they knew and enjoy the benefits of advanced features such as custom clubs and an all-new storefront.
“V3 changed my life in terms of club. It’s so easy to use, to build and run the club, notify people, etc. All I need to do is click a few buttons. It has freed up so much more of my time.” - Engel
With V3, customers can customize their upcoming club order via the website. Custom clubs enable access to certain library vintages or other low inventory SKUs that can be made available on an individual club basis.
Failla’s monthly allocations also benefited from the upgrade to V3. With VineSpring’s allocation tools, Failla was able to increase the frequency of their allocations to monthly.
“What used to take a ton of time and effort is now done in a fraction of the time. I can build an allocation an hour before it goes out.” - Engel
Since Failla had never had a shopping cart on their website before, and their in-person sales were indefinitely halted during the pandemic, they wanted to get up and running online as soon as possible. Using the VineSpring storefront, Failla was able to build a simple store and open up their cellar to online sales with a minimal amount of effort. In the future, they look to dive in further and take advantage of VineSpring’s Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) to customize their storefront.
Their pivot to eCommerce paid off big time. By using the VineSpring storefront and opening up to online sales, Failla successfully replaced their missed tasting room revenue with eCommerce sales.
And since Failla is also a Square customer, they’ve been reaping the benefits of the enhanced integration between VineSpring and Square available on V3.
“The two-way integration between Square and VineSpring has been so helpful. We can now enter customer information into either system and the information is shared. Our tasting room staff has all of the information they need at their fingertips.” - Engel
Failla has certainly faced some challenges over the past few years, as have many craft producers. With the right technology in place to help manage their DTC channels while still delivering a hospitality-focused experience, they are now prepared to weather any storm.
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