Wine pricing: In bond, duty paid, and en primeur

One of the core issues to work around was that buying wine is quite complex, with each case of wine having several potential prices: the retail price, which includes VAT and duty; the in bond price, which refers to wine that is sent to a bonded warehouse and can be bought without VAT or duty; and the en primeur price, which refers to wine that hasn’t been bottled or released to market yet and only available to buy in bond, exclusive of VAT and duty.

Shopify treats these different price points as separate products with separate inventory levels, which is a nightmare for fulfilment. With the help of Patchworks, we created a rule within their integration to sync the data between Shopify and Business Central after every single order.

By unifying Goedhuis’s stock levels after every purchase, we were able to eliminate the risk of overselling. Due to the different rules around buying en primeur wines and drinking wines, we also implemented a feature that prevents customers from buying the two different types in the same transaction.

Parent and child accounts

Because wine brokers use Goedhuis to order products for their clients, some of the brand’s customers had multiple accounts – all using the same email address. Shopify only allows one account per email, so we created a system that sits between Shopify and Business Central, allowing brokers to have numerous child accounts sitting under their main account.

Designed to match the brokers’ unique IDs with the relevant account information, this app automatically logs them into the right account, creating a seamless experience for the customer.

Tasting notes

For wine experts, tasting notes are essential for making the right purchase. That’s why the product pages on Goedhuis’s store include a digestible paragraph denoting the wine’s flavor. Thanks to their integration with Business Central, this data is automatically imported from the brand’s backend system, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.

Producer information

Along with the tasting notes, each product page includes insight into the wine’s producer, which is automatically populated using the data from the brand’s ERP.

Region information

Using data from the brand’s backend system, every product page also includes details about that wine’s specific region, along with an interactive map of the area.

Delivery date selection

With such valuable orders, flexibility is essential for wine brokers. That’s why we set up an app that lets Goedhuis customers pick their delivery window, making it easy for brokers to schedule their deliveries. The checkout also gives customers the option to have their order delivered to a bonded warehouse of their choosing.

Pay account balances

Rather than have standard one-off payments, Goedhuis needed to give their customers the option to accrue balances that could be paid off at a later date. To make this work within Shopify, we allowed variable payments in the frontend, giving clients the choice to pay off a chunk of their outstanding balance. Keeping things seamless for the end user, we also adjusted the messaging in the cart, checkout, and email confirmations, ensuring consistency.

Wine searcher data feed

Another element we implemented for Goedhuis included creating an app to let customers download the wine list for the category page they were viewing. A popular tool among fine-wine merchants, these web-based documents give brokers the ability to share spreadsheet menus of the wines on offer with their clients.

With these features, Tryzens was able to build a fully bespoke shopping experience for Goedhuis.