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About
Transforming Premium Sales with Ultra Commerce’s Concierge Platform. The largest independent fine wine, beer, and spirits retailer in the US, operating over 200 stores nationwide. Known for its massive selection of 8,000 wines, 3,000 spirits, and 2,500 beers, Total Wine strives to create an outstanding shopping experience for customers. To further enhance their premium offering, they envisioned a digital solution to deliver concierge-level sales and service to high-value customers.
Introduction
About Total Wine & More
With over 200 stores across 20 states, Total Wine & More is the largest independent wine retailer in the U.S., renowned for its unparalleled selection of wines, beers, and spirits from around the world. While many customers know Total Wine for its massive inventory and competitive pricing, few are aware of its exclusive Concierge Sales division, catering to serious wine enthusiasts and collectors.
This premium service offers unique access to rare vintages often unavailable in retail locations. Whether customers seek expert help building a wine collection, private consultations for sourcing hard-to-find bottles, or participation in the intriguing Bordeaux Futures (en primeur) program, Total Wine’s Concierge Sales division delivers a tailored, high-end experience.
Bordeaux Futures, in particular, represents a unique challenge: selling wines that haven’t yet been bottled, requiring trust, flexibility, and seamless transactions. Ultra Commerce partnered with Total Wine to make this vision a reality, revolutionizing how premium wine transactions are conducted online.
Challenge
Total Wine’s Concierge Sales team needed a modernized, scalable solution to handle the complex requirements of premium wine sales, including the Bordeaux Futures program. Key challenges included:
Enabling 50% prepayments for wine futures, a differentiator in the industry, while managing the remaining balance upon product delivery.
Automating inventory management for varying bottle sizes from bulk shipments, reducing manual effort and errors.
Streamlining order processing and empowering team members to focus on delivering personalized service.
Providing customers with an intuitive online experience where they could manage orders, payment details, and account preferences.
Without a robust platform, the inefficiencies of manual processes risked slowing down the high-touch service that defines Concierge Sales.
The solution
Ultra Commerce designed and implemented a comprehensive Concierge Sales platform, transforming Total Wine’s premium services. Collaborating closely with the Concierge Sales team, Ultra Commerce:
Conducted an in-depth audit and wireframed the user journey to optimize how customers and staff interact with the platform.
Engineered a flexible system supporting the 50% prepayment model for Bordeaux Futures, reducing friction for customers while minimizing unsold inventory risk.
Automated inventory workflows, enabling seamless SKU management and accurate tracking across different bottle sizes.
Delivered a robust customer account interface, empowering users to create and amend orders, update payment methods, and manage their profiles with ease.
This solution not only tackled the technical complexities but also redefined what premium service could look like in the digital space.
The outcome
The results of the Concierge Sales platform were immediate and game-changing:
Efficiency and Automation: Manual processes like order tracking and inventory management were streamlined, saving significant time and allowing staff to prioritize customer relationships.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Clients now enjoy a modernized interface where they can easily manage orders, make payments, and access account information—a first for Concierge Sales.
Scalable Growth: The flexibility of Ultra Commerce’s platform ensures that Total Wine can expand its premium services while maintaining operational excellence.
As Total Wine’s team remarked, “We had a horse-drawn carriage before—now we’re driving a Lexus.” The platform’s automation and reporting capabilities reduced tasks that once took days to just minutes, from analytics to fulfilling large-scale wine futures consignments.
Go Beyond
Ultra Commerce helped Total Wine & More redefine what’s possible for high-touch premium sales, enabling a seamless, personalized customer journey and setting new industry standards. But this is just the beginning. With plans to further enhance the Concierge Sales platform in its second phase—improving both the front and back ends—Total Wine is poised to deliver an even greater premium experience to its clientele.
At Ultra Commerce, we’re not just building systems; we’re building futures. Whether you’re innovating within your industry or looking to set a new benchmark for success, we’re here to take your business further. Let’s go beyond together. Contact us today to start your transformation.
