Digital Wine Ventures has partnered with Australia Post to create Winedepot, an end-to-end supply chain solution designed for wine businesses to place, pick, pack and ship orders to other wine industry stakeholders.
Winedepot will cater for producers, distributors, importers and retailers by fulfilling orders from inventory reserves held in 'depots' in order to service key markets. The platform aims to reduce delivery times, freight costs and the risk of breakages with the support of Australia Post's capabilities, including warehousing, staffing and its fulfilment system, Fulfilio.
The first four 'depots' will be established in Australia Post fulfilment centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
“Each depot will hold a very broad range of suppliers' inventory on consignment, which can be accessed by a range of sales channels,” said Digital Wine Ventures CEO Dean Taylor.
“As orders are processed through our platform, they are routed to the depot closest to the delivery address where they are picked, packed (by bottle or case) and drop-shipped to the end customer. Depots then automatically replenish on a bi-weekly basis from Winedepot's regional bulk storage facilities on behalf of suppliers.”
The agreement between both parties applies for an initial 5-year term, including 12 months where Australia Post and Digital Wine Ventures have agreed to exclusively work together on wine storage, picking, packing and delivery for wine merchants involved.
Head of growth products at Australia Post, Paul Hersbach, said, “Our partnership with Winedepot provides the wine industry with a specialised distribution service that will not only save money but also improve the consumer delivery experience.”
“We believe that is will help many wine businesses increase their online sales as they place their inventory closer to end consumers and offer same-day evening delivery as a standard service.”
