Sectors · Ecommerce
Ecommerce for wineries, oil mills and local food producers
Selling a product online is a different trade from selling a night, because there is stock that runs out, a box that leaves the building and somebody waiting for a courier. We work with six food and wine producers, and for one of them we built the online shop. This page is about how we work, not a portfolio we don’t have.
Where we come from, and why ecommerce follows from it
What changes when the thing you sell has to ship
People coming from hospitality take for granted things that don’t hold here. These five decide whether the shop works or becomes one more job to do.
The product has a weight and a format
Format, packaging, vintage, the gift case. Each variant has its own price, a real weight and a way of sitting inside a box. That is what decides the cost of sending it.
Availability genuinely runs out
A vintage sells out, a curing batch isn’t ready, this year that honey doesn’t exist. The shop reads real stock and closes the sale before somebody pays for something that will never ship.
The box has to arrive intact
Glass, oil, fresh food, August. Packaging, courier and temperature set the shipping cost, the most common reason a basket gets abandoned, and they decide what the customer finds on opening.
The work starts after the order
Confirmation, tracking, the message from someone whose parcel never came, the return. They get decided before launch and assigned to a person, because left uncovered they come back as reviews.
Your product has rules of its own
Alcohol, fresh food, labelling, sales outside Italy. The constraints change by product and by country. We don’t give tax or legal advice, but the shop gets built around those rules rather than patched up later.
From the price list to the first parcel out the door
You don’t start with the whole catalogue. You pick what survives the journey, test it with real orders, and widen the range once parcels go out without a hitch.
- 01
Choose what to sell
Rarely the whole price list. What holds up is the product that survives the trip, explains itself without you and still leaves a margin once the courier is paid, and that is often ten lines, not a hundred.
- 02
Weights, formats and stock, written down once
Formats, weights, cases, stock, prices and photography, with a written rule on who updates what. This is the slow part, and skipping it gets paid for on the first order that goes wrong.
- 03
Open small, with real orders
A few lines on sale to real customers, real shipments, a real return. It shows where packing gets stuck, at the point when fixing it is still cheap.
- 04
Bring traffic once the orders work
Start with people who already know you, such as visitors to the premises, anyone who left an email address and the restaurants that stock you. Then search and campaigns, with product pages that stand comparison.
Your own shop or a marketplace
They are not mutually exclusive, but they change who owns the customer and what stays with you on each order. Picking one and making it work is usually the better move.
| Aspect | A shop on your own site | Selling on a marketplace |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per order | An investment up front, then payment fees and shipping | Little or nothing to open, then a percentage on every order, for good |
| Who the customer is | Name, contacts and order history stay yours, two years from now too | The buyer belongs to the channel, and often you don’t even know who they are |
| How you compete | On the story of the supply chain, the vintage and the reason for that price | On price, in a listing identical to everyone else’s, next to similar products |
| Traffic | You have to bring it yourself, and that takes time | It is already there, but it looks for a category, not your name |
If you host guests, your online shop already has customers
Frequently asked questions
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Let’s talk about your project
Request a quote to bring your project to life, win more enquiries and keep your customers coming back.