April 6, 2010

Vin65 introduces Mobile E-commerce Platform for Wineries

Fully-formatted and Optimized Mobile Wine Websites for iPhone and Android Phones

Wine e-commerce provider Vin65 released a new mobile platform for wineries who want to take their websites mobile. The platform provides a fully-formatted and optimized mobile wine website for viewing on the iPhone and Android phones.

Surfing most wine websites on a mobile device is frustrating for consumers. If the site hasn't been specially formatted for mobile devices, getting around the site requires consumers to drag and zoom text just to make the content readable. A website optimized for mobile devices allow wineries to offer an enhanced user experience for their customers when they surf their websites from their smart phones.

Other key features and benefits:

Ecommerce: Full ecommerce on your phone (including clubs and allocations). Product display redesigned to fit mobile display. Mobile optimized shopping cart and checkout experience, all completely secure and PCI compliant.
Member Area: Customers can login and edit their profile, view order history and review their wine clubs.
Design: Blogs, event calendars, forms and other components have all been redesigned for the mobile experience.
Content Management: Enter products, blogs, events, and other content once in the admin panel and it appears on both your regular website and your mobile site. Orders, club signups, form entry, and data flows directly into admin panel.
SEO / Marketing: Marketing URLs, Meta Tags, and Google Analytics all work in the mobile commerce.
Branding: Mobile site is crisp, consistent in branding with the winery's main website

Jeff Stai, owner of Twisted Oak winery and a client of Vin65, has previewed the mobile platform via his own Twisted Oak mobile website: "It hasn't been that many years where, in order to carry around a computer, you needed a refrigerator dolly. Now you can carry a computer around in your pants (with no awkward bulge!) A web site that is easily viewed, and actually used, on a mobile device is a vital part of business in a world where the only computer a person owns might be their mobile phone. And this mobile winery web site from Vin65 is not only clean and clear, but it's easy for me to keep up to date, and the user interface is... usable!"

Kristen Walnofer, Direct Marketing Specialist at Cuvaison Estate Wines is also a client of Vin65's new mobile platform:"Vin65 has demolished our barriers to entry into the mobile web playing field. We are excited to take our first step to becoming an industry leader in the way we accommodate mobile consumers. And the best part is, with Vin65’s innovative platform, it’s as simple as ever."

Andrew Kamphuis of Vin65 provided insights to the current state of mobile winery websites: "Wineries want to take their websites mobile, but many are challenged by formatting requirements or mistakenly think that their current site will be mobile-friendly when pulled up on a smartphone browser. After we visited the top 500 e-commerce sites on the web with our iPhones, we found that only 30 to 40 of them offered true mobile sites. What's new here is that we're offering a mobile design based on that research. Just hope to make it easier for wineries to take their sites mobile and keep them from frustrating their customers."

Blog: www.vin65.com/blog
Website: www.vin65.com
RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Vin65

About Vin65:
Located in British Columbia, Canada, Vin65's parent company K1 Technology Corp. was founded in November 1999 as a supplier of content management and e-commerce systems for small businesses. It now specializes in providing wineries with solutions for managing their websites including website design, e-commerce, content management and customer relationship management. For more information, call 604-852-8140 or visit www.vin65.com.

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Andrew Kamphuis, President
Office: 604-852-8140, Cell: 604-613-5343
Email: andrew@vin65.com

Melissa Dobson, Interview requests
Office: 607-377-5318, Cell: 917-816-5424
Email: melissa.dobson@avantguild.com