Nearly one in three trades now involve automation – and the number is rising. We explored this in a recent post, which also showed how trading automation is changing the shape of the market by encouraging greater wine diversity.
But how is this impacting individual merchants?
We conducted studies on three merchants who use trading automation. In the individual articles, we give an overview of how and why they started to automate, as well as the impact on their businesses.
To respect our members’ wishes to remain anonymous, we’ve referred to them as Merchant A, Merchant B, and Merchant C.
Before automation
Two of the merchants, A and C, had been using Liv-ex as a sales channel for some time. Both had success with this and wanted to list more stock, faster.
The third, Merchant B, was interested in offering stock from Liv-ex to its customers in an effort to increase overall sales.
What they did
The three merchants brought in automation with varying levels of complexity.
Merchant A and C both use automation to offer their stock on Liv-ex automatically. Merchant A’s advanced stock system enabled them to connect with relative ease, bringing their stock list in sync with Liv-ex. When one of their wines is sold on Liv-ex, it is marked as sold on their own system instantly.
Merchant C’s implementation was the fastest and cheapest. Their stock is not perfectly in sync with Liv-ex, but they can list stock with minimal manual intervention and monitor sales easily.
Merchant B is offering Liv-ex stock to its customers via its website. When a customer places an order, the wine is market as sold on both systems automatically. It was already using a modern stock system, which its in-house developer customised.
The results
All three merchants have increased sales and efficiency thanks to automation. For merchants A and C, this came as a result of being able to list more stock, faster.
A representative from Merchant A told us: “It’s like having an extra salesperson”.
Merchant B was able to increase its online offering significantly. As a result, it has enjoyed an exponential increase in sales. It was also surprised by the buying patterns of its customers, which were much broader than anticipated. It is now able to take better advantage of these diverse preferences.
Now that these merchants have automation set up, it will continue to work for them, increasing sales and profits.
Find out more
Automation works a little differently for different merchants. Our experienced consultants are available to help you find the best solution for your business. To request a free call, visit this page.
You can also download our short guide to automation, which outlines the various ways that wine merchants are automating. Complete this short form to receive your copy.
