Advanced Tasting Room Strategies, a two-day conference and tasting room buying show featuring new products and services to help boost retail sales and profits, kicked off Tuesday, January 30 at the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park, California. The first day of the conference featured four educational seminars, including "TTB Regulatory Update," "Anatomy of a Compliant Sales Order," "Your ROI on Third Party Fulfillment Warehouses" and "Tips on Wine Club Member Retention."

TTB Regulatory Update:

The first seminar, given by guest speaker and wine industry analyst Perky Ramroth, focused on the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) regulatory updates. Ramroth reviewed direct-to-consumer shipping, including the Webb-Kenyon Act, the law relating to the enforcement of the 21st Amendment stating that under provisions of law, administrative action can be taken against a basic permit where a basic permittee ships alcoholic beverages into a State in violation of the laws of that State.

Ramroth's seminar also highlighted the rules for transfer of unlabeled bottled wine. TTB has received inquiries about the transfer, labeling, recordkeeping and tax payment of unlabeled bottled wine (sometimes called "shiners"). Ramroth went on to discuss the responsibilities of the wine producer verses the responsibilities of the bottler. "The bottler always must be the one to obtain the Certificate of Label Approval," she said. The bottler obtains a Certification/Exemption of Label/Bottle Approval (COLA), substantiated by the transfer record, which accompanies the wine from the producer.

Ramroth also discussed the importance of generic labels verses final labels. She suggests that, because the label must be approved before wine can be bottled, wineries should come up with four generic labels: red wine greater than 14 percent alcohol content; red wine with less than a 14 percent alcohol content; white wine with greater than 14 percent alcohol content; and white wine with less than a 14 percent alcohol content. The bottler may later obtain approval for final labels to be applied to bottles.

Finally, Ramroth reviewed recordkeeping and reporting, excise tax and wine labeling concerns that the TTB must look after, as well as recent rulings made by the Bureau. For tips on staying compliant, including all federal wine regulations; rulings, procedures and policies; frequently asked questions; samples of forms and blank forms; and contact information, visit www.ttb.gov.

Anatomy of a Compliant Sales Order:

The second seminar focused on direct shipping expert and president of Six88, Jason Eckenroth's best methods for building compliance into your tasting room, wine club and e-commerce practices. "Direct shipping is an important source of revenue, and with frequent changes in rules, new enforcement, new rule types and reporting requirements there are new challenges for wineries," Eckenroth said.

He also reported that a recent poll revealed that 96 percent of wineries are not shipping to all available states for the following three reasons: 1) the cost of the license is too high, 2) there aren't enough customers in some states and 3) the complexity of reporting requirements. In order to tackle these challenges, Eckenroth suggests that wineries consolidate their data, conduct compliance checks, write reports on compliance and educate staff and customer on compliance practices.

The overall message of his speech was that there are obstacles to look out for, but they can be overcome with free leverage tools. For rules, visit www.wineinstitute.org/shipwine; for address validation, www.usps.com; and for news and others, visit www.shipcompliantblog.com, www.shipcompliant.com/maptool and www.winebusiness.com/directshipping.

Your ROI on Third Party Fulfillment Warehouses and Tips on Wine Club Member Retention:

Katie Schumacher Hoertkorn of New Vine Logistics spoke about keeping your wine club and consumer-direct shipping in-house versus outsourcing it; evaluating outside fulfillment centers, including the efficiency of their pick and pack practices; compliance checks; address verification; and inventory control systems. According to Hoertkorn, wineries outsource for various reasons, including lower labor costs, customer retention through order accuracy and compliance services, and reporting with complete audit ability, among others. She also discussed key intangibles of value in outsourcing, what to look for in outsourcing and direct shipping numbers. Overall, she concluded that outsourcing should be used to lower costs, improve ROI, improve customer service, stay compliant and to utilize top trends in winery direct supply chain management. For more on fulfillment practices, see "Is it Time to Outsource Your Consumer-Direct Shipping" in the February issue of Wine Business Monthly. Look for "How to Select a Third-Party Fulfillment Center" in the upcoming March issue.

The final seminar of day one was led by Theresa Dorr of Active Club Management, who talked about Wine Club Member Retention. Topics included building club membership, retention and ideas to generate new club members and maximize club revenues. For more information on Wine Club Retention, see "Retaining Wine Club Members" in the February issue of Wine Business Monthly.

Day one concluded with a tasting room trade show in the afternoon, followed by an evening reception with wine and appetizers. Today, day two of the conference will continue with an additional four seminars and afternoon trade show. For more information, visit www.wineprofits.com.