The Wine Society has marked its six millionth multichannel order.
The cooperative wine supplier, which was founded in 1874, implemented the Maginus multichannel solution in 1998 and since then its total turnover has doubled to just over £80m. When The Wine Society started using the system, some 50% of orders came over the phone, and 50% by mail order. Today sales of its 1,500 products are made primarily online and by phone – some 1,000 inbound calls are taken each day.
In the meantime the solution has seen regular upgrades and today it processes sales from sources including the web, catalogue, call centre, the store and iPhone and Android apps, fulfilling them irrespective of the channel. Products, pricing and business information is controlled through one point of maintenance, and the system also enables The Wine Society to track where the customer browsed before placing their order.
David Marsh, head of information systems at The Wine Society, said: “The day after the catalogue is mailed, there is a clear increase in orders being placed through the website, showing that the catalogue is still an important channel, in particular for our member demographic.”
Janice Mawhinney, marketing manager at Maginus, said: “We have worked with The Wine Society for many years and we’ve seen many changes over that time, one of the key ones being the shift to new sales channels.”
