What You Need to Know About Selling Your Wine on Amazon
Don’t just ‘list’ your wines online , ‘sell’ them on Amazon. Reach those magic numbers. BTN interviews Andreas Wetzel from Chateau Bianca in Oregon, USA to find out what works and what doesn’t when selling your wines on Amazon.

Today it is commonly known and accepted that a winery can increase their sales by listing their products on major online selling platforms like Amazon. But, it’s not about just listing your products, it’s about them actually selling. So, what should a winery do for their wines to stand out among the plethora of wines available online today and to achieve those magic numbers?
To find out, BTN sat down with Andreas Wetzel, winemaker and owner at Chateau Bianca in the Willamette Valley in the state of Oregon, USA. They produce Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc with a limited production of Sparkling wines, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Marechal Foch, Chardonnay, Ruby Port, Vin de Glace, and specialty wines.

- We commonly think that online wine shoppers buy entry level wines. Is this fact or false? Since yours are mid-priced wines, how do they fit within this framework?
I would say that you will find a big range of pricing on-line. Not all consumers are looking for entry level wines especially since online platforms usually have a great selection of wines from smaller producers. For us, capitalizing on the use of Amazon’s large customer base made perfect sense.

2. What do you do to make your wines stand out from the throng of wine sellers out there? How do you carve out a niche for your winery and your wines?
This is a great question. Considering that more people are discovering this medium to sell it can be a challenge. Amazon has a number of programs that they will share with a seller to help them get the most sales they can. Remember, when you sell your wine through them, they make money on that sale and that makes them profits. On Amazon one of the key elements is getting your wine reviewed by customers. This is not as easy as you would think. However, once you get a good following on a wine it will move up on the search list for that category.
3. Are any domestic and international wineries able to sell wines through Amazon in USA? Are there any qualifications wineries need to meet? Do international wineries need a local importer first?
You will find a great selection of domestic and imported wines on Amazon. For a domestic winery you need to get appropriate licensing in the states you plan to sell the wine in. Even though Amazon provides a selling platform you would either need to have your own licensing for each state that Amazon will promote the wines in, or you would have to work with a fulfillment service that has the appropriate licensing in place. I don’t have firsthand experience as to what requirements are needed for international wineries but I would venture to guess that you would need to have an importer so that you can have someone bring the wine into the country and then be able to fill those domestic orders.
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