Since it's snowing, even in Texas!

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Since the weather has been so cold, I wanted to discuss shipping in cold weather (or hot for that matter).

We have Ship Compliant light, which includes a temperature map of the United States. You can type in the postcode, set your temperature preferences and it will tell you based on your temperature limitations whether it’s cold/too hot or not. Pretty handy, but very manual when it comes to determining how to hold and when to ship hundreds of wine club shipments.

Does anyone use Ship Compliant’s weather tools? Perhaps we can maximize our use of Shipcomplaint somehow, but since we use the light version we don’t currently import orders into SC. We don’t use a fulfillment house. We would consider an outside source to help us deal with how to hold, does anyone use one they find efficient?

I have posted this topic before and I think Ed’s advice was great: “We have a responsibility as wineries to give customers great experiences and that extends through delivery. So assure your customers you will get them their wine safely, in a reasonable amount of time, and educate them about the risks of cold weather”

I find that customers are understanding of weather holds, although I kind of view them as a stall on maximizing sales (getting wine to customers, them enjoying it, then ordering more!)

My point is to start a discussion on how efficiently wineries can handle weather holds. Add advisory to the cart? Weather holds? Fullfillment house? Other outside resources? Change wine club month from February to March, (ha!)?? It’d be interesting to hear everyone’s take or tip on this.

By the way this is Melissa Askew, Wine Club Manager for Morgan Winery. I need to fix my user account info!

Thank you! Hope to hear some response.

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Weather holds are difficult to automate because different wineries have different tolerances for hot and cold and the destination’s temperature is only part of the puzzle when it comes to temperature risk.

Some things you can do:

  1. Clearly state on your site your weather hold policy.

  2. Warn customers of the possibility of weather holds in the cart using things like WineDirect’s weather advisory.

  3. Swiftly notify affected customers that their order has been delayed and provide them their options (expedite, cancel) if you weather hold their order.

There are very few times throughout the year where there isn’t some type of weather risk to some of your customers, but we can’t let that stand in our way. I think the best way to address this is through a combination of efforts that include a well-thought-out shipping strategy, the use of multiple fulfillment warehouses and shipping methods, and the remediation tips you provided above.