WineShop At Home First to Employ Vinotype™ System for National Growth

BEND, Ore. - April 10, 2017 - PRLog -- Jane Creed and Mark Densmore, CEO and CTO of Napa-based premiere direct and social selling company, WineShop At Home, were planning for the future. WineShop At Home is an in-home, direct wine seller that has grown to include their own bonded winery, a legion of wine-loving entrepreneurs conducting in-home Wine Tastings, an online wine marketplace and highly successful wine club. They needed to build a powerful, scalable business system that could reach their 2000+ Wine Consultants throughout the country and also assist with portfolio and inventory management, employee training and consumer engagement. Their options included all sorts of CRM, eCommerce and SaaS systems. One of their main priorities was capturing consumer preferences and then helping them identify which wine in their portfolio of exclusive wine brands would be most appealing.

In 2013, both Jane and Mark had participated in a trade seminar presented by Master of Wine, Tim Hanni, called Why You Like The Wines You Like. In it, they recalled, Tim debunked myths associated with typical wine and food pairing and abolished using confusing metaphorical descriptors to sell wine. His concept was to 'focus on the person, not the product' and that resonated with their values for WineShop At Home. They gave Hanni a call and setup a meeting to see if these concepts could be included in their new platform.

As it turns out, Tim had recently partnered with Napa-based tech entrepreneur and marketing consultant, Chris Cutler, to build an entire technology platform around assessing consumer Vinotypes™ and making smart wine recommendations by understanding individuals' personal preferences.

After a few short meetings an agreement was made, and WineShop At Home began development of a platform that makes API calls to the Vinotype™ server and helps with many functions across their organization. The Vinotype™ assessment was to become a critical component of any visitor to their website, and any in-home Wine Tasting events. It was viewed as a way to make learning about personal preferences fun, and also a way of categorizing wine to match varietal profiles to individual "Vinotypes™".

Meanwhile, Hanni and Cutler developed informative videos to educate and inform the home-based consultants located around the country on the concepts of Vinotyping, as well as best practices for starting a "New Conversation" and selling more wine. This project quickly became a video library of 60 short clips that range from "What is a Vinotype?" to specific clips addressing the many myths and misinformation commonly encountered by wine lovers.

At their 2014 National Sales Conference in Sacramento, WineShop At Home and myVinotype™, made a joint announcement that the deployment of myVinotype wine recommendation technology was integrated into the WineShop At Home website and the program would be rolled out to all Independent Wine Consultants around the country.

Since that time the relationship has flourished, with the Vinotype™ technology now being included in the WSAH mobile app and system of inventory management (how the wines are organized and presented, in a "progressive wine list"). Also the principles are used to train new employees to offer consistent, consumer-focused experiences across the multi-level independent home-based Wine Tastings. In general, WineShop At Home is achieving their goal of using the Vinotype™ methodology to better understand customers and sell them wines they would love most.

myVinotype™ has also expanded their offering to now make their personal preference and smart wine recommendation engine available to any business, and in 7 languages including English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Mandarin (Chinese) and Portuguese. They offer free webinars and affordable annual subscriptions to any wine or hospitality business who wants access to their educational videos, consumer assessment technology, data segmentation and analytics and access to this "New Conversation" to better Connect, Convert and Retain wine customers.

About myVinotype™ (visit: www.myVinotype.com contact: tim@timhanni.com)

FOR WINE CONSUMERS - myVinotype™ is a free way to learn more about your own personal preferences, then review, remember and share wines, and explore wines that other people just like you have shared, wherever you are at - online, mobile or in social media - all for FREE. Think of it as "Instagram meets Yelp! for Wine... with Relevance". Now in 7 languages, including English, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese!

FOR WINE OR HOSPITALITY BUSINESSES - myVinotype™ is a way to connect, convert and retain wine customers by starting a new conversation focused on the person, not the product. We offer a host of free information, webinars, services and access to our platform via two plans - one free, and one paid -  for wine-related businesses.

About WineShop At Home (visit: www.wineshopathome.com)

1-800 WineShop.Com, Inc. DBA WineShop At Home, is a licensed, bonded California winery and a proud member of the Direct Selling Association, adhering to the DSA Code of Ethics. WineShop At Home is a whole new way to learn about, experience and shop for great wines.

Headquartered in the famed Napa Valley, WineShop At Home is the only direct-seller to offer their own line of exclusive, artisan wine brands available nowhere else on earth. Their Independent Wine Consultants throughout the country present in-home Wine Tastings where guests can taste our wines and learn about, experience and buy wines directly from the winery. WineShop At Home epitomizes a whole new generation of direct selling – offering an exceptional consumer experience, as well as an unparalleled and exciting business opportunity.