Videos, Google-style search engine, blog, Facebook page – Millesima.com, one of the leading e-commerce site, is gearing up towards Web 2.0 level and entering the age of social media.

Millesima.com is positioned as a very high-end e-commerce site. It sells only 12-bottle cases of Bordeaux classified Growths, Burgundy or Rhone Valley wines. Their customers are passionate wine amateurs and connoisseurs. Prices are obviously high and there is no bargain or discounted prices. Millesima.com sells in Europe. In their US on line store, the offer differs slightly as it sells sought-after South American, Italian, American and Spanish wines.

The move towards Web 2.0 is not without danger. The image of Millesima is linked to the image of the Bordeaux Chateaux, Burgundy domains or Champagne houses the store sells – an image of excellence and prestige. Their chais hold over 2,000,000 bottles of the best wines in the world by cases of 12 or special formats (Magnums, jeroboams). That’s why its entry in the world of social media has to be well thought out. Gerard Spatafora, the Web Marketing Director, chose a rather elegant strategy. With the help of a former wine journalist and expert in communication, Frederic Lot, he launched a series of high quality videos about some of the estates and their wines sold by the company. Those videos are in three parts: a presentation of the estate, a more technical part and a third one wore consumer oriented with wine and food pairing or drinkability of the wine, for example. They’re implemented in a separate section of the site and have a different design. The videos are not meant only to sell more wines but also to share with Millesima’s customers the world of culture represented by prestige wines. At the moment, the videos are only in French but English and German versions are in the making. When the series will be completed, there will be 150 videos – one for each reference stored by Millesima. But even with only 3 videos, the section is like a little oasis of culture in the middle of an e-commerce site.

At the same time as Millesima launched the video section, it opened a Facebook page. It’s still a little too early to see any significant initative. For now their page is only announcing their events or the new features of the site. It needs a little kick up to become a real Web 2.0 tool in their communication strategy.

Let’s Millesima keep working on their Web 2.0 strategy. See you in a few months with more news on an innovative e-commerce site!

I didn’t think that trying to buy a book in a bookstore could become such a frustrating experience. The book I was seeking is Chris Brogan and Julien Smith‘s Trust Agents. Yesterday I heard this long-awaited book was available in Borders and Barnes and Noble bookstores all over the country. I rushed to the nearest Barnes and Noble and checked on their computer the availability of the book. It was supposed to be on the shelves in the Business section. I spent quite a long time looking through all the books and couldn’t find it. A very helpful clerk checked on the computer, helped me look on the shelf and puzzled, decided to check in the backroom. He came back empty handed and told me the book must have been misplaced and I should order on line. I thanked him and moved to Borders across the street. The exact same experience was waiting for me with the same result and the same puzzling answer: “Order on line”. Being a stubborn person I went home and started calling the other bookstores a little further around: exact same answer. There is a copy of the book somewhere in the store but we can’t find it. Order on line!

Why do I even bother writing about this story? First of all, because I hate being a frustrated reader. Second and more importantly, because it made me think about the growing importance of the e-commerce on every economic activity – whether it is books or wines. Borders as well as Barnes and Noble pretend to have a book in their stores and then recommend the customer who took the time to walk or drive to the store, peruse the shelves and ask for help to order on line. Indeed by ordering on line the book price is discounted and shipping is free. Good for the consumer (maybe?) but is it good for the company? As a customer I thought very inconsiderate of them to waste my precious time. It reflects poorly on their image and professionalism and next time I badly need a book, I won’t go to the store. Will I order on line from them? Certainly not! Still sulking after my useless walks and phone calls, I got on line and ordered from Amazon.com!

Does it mean that those two companies want to downsize their stores or even close some of them after they got their customers to order on line? It could be. This is good news for the e-commerce and the consumer but bad news for the local economic life of many small towns or suburbs. Is it possible this business model applies to the wine industry? Boutique wines are usually not available in supermarkets. Mass market wines are not available in independently owned wine stores that usually carry more exclusive and should I say interesting? wines. The two business models are acting parallel to each other without interfering with each other. Both are now facing the competition of the e-commerce through wine clubs and mostly wine sites, such as wine.com, snooth.com, thewinespies.com and many others. Thanks to the diversity of the distribution ssystem (within its frustrating limits), wine consumers have now more choice of places and ways than book readers to buy their favorite ones.

What will become of the poetic image of a person reading a book with a glass of (good) wine in hand in a few years? History…

Selling wine on line is not a novelty. Wine.com was one of the pioneers and, after many ups and downs, became the major wine store on line we now know. Nowadays on line wine stores are more and more numerous, inversing what’s happening in the brick and mortar world. Thirty years ago, there were 12,000 wine wholesalers while there are only 200 nowadays, said Jeremy Benson to New York Times journalist Claire Cain Miller. “As a result, more and more people visit vineyards, can’t find the wine they want in the store and go online to buy it.”

This statement is in direct contradiction with Barbara Insel’s analysis as reported by Miller: “Wine purchases are driven by recommendations from trusted firends or salespeople, a visit to a winery or a special experience at a restaurant. You don’t get that just from going to a Web site. It’s the ultimate experiential purchase.”

It is not true anymore with the Web 2.0 on line stores, such as snooth.com, redpinkwhite.com or americanwinery.com. Those sites have all the Web 2.0 features: on americanwinery.com, for example, winemakers can post their tasting notes and give tips to potential tourists, wine drinkers can buy, rate, review and discuss their bottles, a blog offers recipes, wine pairings and interviews, a wine encyclopedia defines terms from A to Z. This is the ultimate experiental purchase – with a total refusal of the top-down messaging strategy.

What is the business model of americanwinery.com? The site is free for wineries and customers. The wineries set the price of their bottles. When a bottle is bought, the site processes the payment and the winery is in charge of the shipment. Lloyd Benedict, founder of the site, doesn’t want to deal with shipping: it’s too costly and complex. Americanwinery.com keeps 10% of the purchase and gives back 90% of the paid price to the winery. This is the big difference between Benedict’s site and other resellers or wholesalers: a typical distributor would give 50% of the sale price to the winery.

The philosophy behind the site is very trendy. Benedict, a 24-year old entrepreneur, surfs on the interest of consumers for local products. His site encourages consumers to buy wines produced next door to them. The wineries are usually very small operations, producing less than 1,000 cases a year with no access to general distribution or with no capital to start their own on line store. Direct sales through americanwinery.com is a very good deal for them.

From wine.com, so typical of web 1.0 to americanwinery.com, snooth.com or redwhitepink.com, latest expressions of web 2.0, there is the long road into the 21st Century.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Gregory Bressolles at the Bordeaux management School. Prof. Bressolles conducted a very interesting study on the French and international e-commerce sites in the wine business. He presented this study at the last Vinexpo in June 2007 and I was lucky enough to have a preview of this fascinating study. It revealed the backstage of wine selling on the Internet and the key success factors of this distribution channel at the international level: “The online wine market is expanding, exhibiting an annual growth rate of around 30%, writes Prof. Bressolles. Following the pattern of other consumer goods, the sale of wine on the Internet is experiencing growing success in France and throughout the world. Although this market still represents a very small proportion of the total market, it is estimated to be worth 100 million euros in France and slightly under 2 billion euros worldwide, that is 5% of global wine sales across all distribution channels. In France, more than 200 e-commerce sites share this market. However, three players generate turnover of more than 5 million euros each: 1855.com (€14.7m), Chateauonline.com (€9.4m) and WineandCo.com (€5.5m).”

Wine Brands gives you the results of that e-commerce barometer and the winners of the competition. Prof. Bressolles wants to expand his study to more international e-commerce sites and maybe renew it every year. We’ll keep an eye on his work and will keep you posted on his next work.