2024 is here and we’re taking a look back at DTC sales to look at trends, how wineries performed and where the industry saw success.
With every new year comes new trends across channels, new ways of buying, and having to adapt with the industry and buyers. Let’s take a look at 2023 through winery data across all DTC sales channels.
Sales by Region and Channel
Overall, it has been a steady year for the industry. For all regions, overall DTC sales are down -1% from 2022 to 2023. Even though it shows that sales have not increased from 2022, 1% is nothing to be too concerned about. Rather, it shows an opportunity for wineries to double down on performance tracking to assist in future efforts.
Key Highlights:
Regions that are highest in Wine Club Sales are +15.9% in Texas and +4.9% in Sonoma
Oregon Events Sales are the highest across all regions, leading at +11.6%
Texas had the highest overall DTC sales increase at 2.6% across all channels from 2022 to 2023
Online Sales Analysis
Online sales are slowing with all regions trending downwards -10.4% across all regions.
Wine Club Metrics
The good news is that overall Wine Club sales were up by 2.8% across all regions however, in 2022 sales were up by 12.8% meaning we are seeing that sales are slowing YoY. When we dig into it - there are some concerning metrics we wanted to highlight so that wineries can plan proactively.
Comparing 2023 to 2022, Club Signups are at -13.6% and Club Memberships are down -2.5%. This means that while we do see one positive number, we need to pay close attention to the others. It’s a great time to focus efforts on driving new signups and engage with current members.
Tasting Room Analysis
Tasting room sales are down for all regions at -3.6%. Looking at 2022, we did predict that sales would slow as people are not looking to purchase wine when visiting. However, with Wine AOV up, the average order is up +2.4%.
Tasting Room Wine Order Conversion Rate
We saw TR Wine Order Conversion Rate decline from 51.5% down to 49.3%.
Tasting Room Club Conversion Rate
TR Club Conversion also saw a decrease from 7% in 2022 to 6.7% in 2023 which shows tasters are more reluctant to buy wine and sign up for clubs. Which also explains the slow in wine club signups.
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When you look at all of the metrics we can’t ignore that the metrics show signs of slowing across channels. The good news is that overall, sales are only down by 1%.
While this can feel discouraging it also provides an opportunity for wineries. It’s time to be proactive and strategize, create goals for the year ahead, plan with staff and understand why conversions and sales may not be happening, and most importantly, make sure your winery is tracking key metrics and sales across DTC channels to stay ahead and identify club members and customers at risk ahead of time.
How WinePulse can help
WinePulse is the leading direct-to-consumer (DTC) analytics platform for wineries. Composed of WinePulse Analytics, a DTC reporting solution, and ChatDTC, a cutting-edge AI powered assistant to analyze POS data. WinePulse helps wineries unlock insights from their data and delivers clear, actionable results to help drive sales, boost performance, increase customer engagement, and make better-informed business decisions.