Dean Taylor: This week we topped $200 million market cap. I'm still a bit dizzy from it. By being agnostic and working with anyone and everyone. You know, we're not out there at the coal face trying to compete for customer sales, but we get a clip of every single bottle that gets moved. A big part of it is telling the story. You know, try not to talk about what you're going to do, but talk about what you've done.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to
Dean Taylor: know in the fast moving world of E commerce.
[Voiceover]: Nathan Bush from 12 High and an
Dean Taylor: E commerce industry expert will share the
[Voiceover]: news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the
Dean Taylor: top of your game.
[Voiceover]: And of course, keep your customers Adding to Cart hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and Director at E Commerce talent agency E Suite. It's Monday morning. Let's talk wine and fulfillment. What can go wrong, right? Today's guest is Dean Taylor, who has a long history in the online wine business. He's founded and sold wine businesses such as Cracker Wines, My wine guy, and the Wine Collective. I'd call him Australia's version of Gary Vaynerchuk, but he might not be too happy with that. Dean joins me to discuss his latest venture, Wine Depot, which aims to simplify and streamline the warehouse and fulfillment process for wine manufacturers who want to go direct to customers. Launching in 2018, it has gained incredible traction so far with some of Australia's leading wine manufacturers signing on. They've also expanded into a new marketplace model and now have a market cap of almost $200 million under the ASX entity Digital Wine Ventures stock code DWA. If you're playing along at home for full transparency, I am a very low level stock owner, but I've featured Dean not because of that, but because I think he's solving a big problem for smaller manufacturers looking to take advantage of the E. Com opportunity, especially for Australian producers looking to go overseas. Now make sure you stay until the end because there is a very tragic and hugely amusing story around a thug and a broken bottle of wine from the 1800s. Dean also shares his favorite wines that he's discovered in and currently enjoying. So if you're into that kind of thing, they're worth sticking around for. Apologies again for my voice here. I swear I haven't had surgery to get it deepened. Trust me, I looked into it. It's not a tax write off to have surgery to get a deepened voice on a podcast. But I'm on the mend now, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our conversation with Dean Taylor from Wine Depot.
Nathan Bush: Dean Taylor, welcome to ADD to cart.
Dean Taylor: Thanks very much for having me, Nathan.
Nathan Bush: Pleasure. Now, we first met, it was about a year and a half ago, back in October 2019, before COVID hit. We were on a drinks innovation panel in. Was it Sydney or Melbourne?
Dean Taylor: It was in Sydney. Retail Drinks Conference and agm, I think was.
Nathan Bush: That's it. And you were in the earlier stages of Digital Wine Ventures, even though it's been going for a long time, but launching the new venture. But since then it's exploded, it's gone off the charts and I think it's worth about 10 times more than what it was back then. Can you give us a little bit of an overview around what you do, firstly before we get into that growth story?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, sure. So Digital Wine Ventures is the listed company and at the moment we just have one asset, which is a business that I founded and sold into Digital Wine Ventures called Wine Depot. Winedepot is a platform business technology platform. We essentially are providing, I guess, wine and beverage producers a platform that they can use to manage their direct to consumer and their direct to trade channels and hopefully sometime in the future, their direct to export channels. And it essentially creates efficiencies in the supply chain. And so even though those channels that we're introducing to them are far more profitable, generate much higher margins, often that margin is lost because of the logistics required to support D2C in particular. And so the platform connects with the existing technologies, allows the data to flow through nice and easily. We hold the inventory across a network of depots around the country. And as those orders come through, they get sent to the depot closest to the customer, they get picked and packed sometimes same and the next day delivered. And because they're delivering locally, it's a lot cheaper. So that's really, I guess, the broad overview. We're in the process of launching the direct to trade component as we speak, the Wine Depot market, we're calling it, which is essentially allows the supplies to sell directly through to trade buyers and. And bypassing traditional distribution, which normally would cost them 35% of the wholesale price. We're doing that for 10%. So it's a massive saving in terms of the margin that otherwise lose. And obviously it leverages that logistics network that we've already built out to fulfill those orders. So, yeah, pretty exciting times.
Nathan Bush: It is. And this isn't your first wine venture. You've had a few wine ventures before this that you've been successful in. Is this a problem though that you've always seen that is specific for wine that you're solving now?
Dean Taylor: Yes, it is. And it was really, I mean this, you're right, this is the eighth venture in wine and tech space. And in many ways I think it was the challenges that I faced in most of those other businesses that led to the business plan for Wine Depot. You know, There was about 10 years ago I had a business called Cracker Wines and it was a pure play marketplace, consumer marketplace. We were very good at acquiring customers and generating sales orders, but then we would send the orders onto the wineries to get them fulfilled and that's where things broke. So it was really sort of trying to figure out what would be a solution that would work for our business. That led me down the path to create the Wine Depot model. And then I realized at the time when we started to model it up that one business wasn't really big enough to support the platform. And the only way it would really work is if it was agnostic and you know, any, any channel could use that, you know, the supporting infrastructure as well as not just being for consumers. It had to be able to work for trade as well. So, yeah, about two and a half, three years ago I sort of moved on from on what was, you know, had become wine collector business. And after merger and kicked off this one.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. So just to put myself into the wine merchant's shoes. So I own a winery. I'm living the good life or what people think is the good life, until you've got to do the hard work. And I want to sell online. I've always probably sold into bottle shops or at the, at my winery and now I want to sell online. And you're offering through Wine Depot the opportunity to send a whole bunch of cases into a centralised warehouse. Is it one warehouse or a couple of warehouses?
Dean Taylor: There's a combination of models. So if they're a fairly small producer, we have one. It's a national distribution centre. It's located on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. From that site we're able to offer next day delivery into Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, one day plus one day into Brisbane. So from that one warehouse they can actually service the entire east coast incredibly well. But if they're, you know, a bigger winery and they've got more inventory and they would like to have same day deliveries done and we've got a network of depots in all capital cities so Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, they can hold inventory and market then. So. And I guess, you know, most wineries now have got to the point where they've got some sort of website up in rain. But as you know, the website's not half of it is actually getting people to the website. That's a challenge. And so what we're doing is in the direct consumer channel, we're helping them by allowing them to connect to lots of other online marketplaces and retailers. And so we've just recently announced a partnership with Vivino. So they'll be able to have their wines range through Vivino using that same inventory instance. And there's a, you know, there's others obviously there, you know, there's the Amazons and the ebay's and things like Dan Murphy's their marketplace and a whole host of other online retailers that we're looking to connect into that infrastructure. So it helps those smaller wineries sort of develop that reach across much broader market without having to, I guess, invest in the digital marketing capability.
[Voiceover]: Gotcha.
Nathan Bush: So it's about connecting directly into consumers to do that fulfillment piece. But then the new marketplace is also allowing them to go into retailers as well and fulfill and reach a whole bunch of new customers.
Dean Taylor: Absolutely. And so the direct to trade marketplace we're launching, that allows for a lot of small producers. They're probably too small for a distributor to take on or they just have a cost model that doesn't support giving away that much margin to a distributor. And so for all of those often very good producers, but just small volumes, we're enabling them a really easy ramp into the wholesale market. So, you know, we're hopeful we'll actually grow the size of the wholesale market by providing them such an easy way to get on.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, brilliant. And you've got some amazing wineries already on your books, like Peter Lehman, Brokenwood, Casella, household names. But there's also, as you said, there's a lot of smaller wineries that are now getting their chance to distribute their product all over the country and soon all over the world. Is there any standout stories that you can recall of how your distribution model has actually changed one of those businesses, those small wine businesses?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, I guess, I mean, we'd only just launched the business, it was in late 2019, and you might recall there was some devastating bushfires ripping through most of Australia at the time. But one of the wine regions that was really badly affected was the Adelaide Hills. And there's a absolutely gorgeous little winery in there called Golding wines and they were really quite affected by the fires, unfortunately. And beautiful couple who've, you know, sort of nurtured this. You know, it's not just a winery, but, you know, it's a wedding reception venue and a cafe restaurant as well. And, you know, they were really knocked around and so, you know, they. And then within a month or two afterwards, everyone was in lockdown because of COVID and so their cash flow absolutely dried up overnight. And so we were able to quickly integrate them into our network and not only support them at a logistics level, but get the message out there and promote it across our shareholders and I guess our contacts within the industry and community. And we're so working with them, they were able to get their business back on track and get inventory moving, get that cash flow and then get back into the job of fixing their winery. So that was really rewarding to be involved with that. And, you know, they're kicking goals again, which is fantastic to see.
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Dean Taylor: more
Nathan Bush: in terms of how it works, then post that delivery. So you send, so in the traditional model, you send the, the order out on behalf of the winery to the direct, to the customer. How does customer service and returns work from there?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, I, I guess it's up to the winery. You know, a lot of wineries, you know, want to remain hands on, involved in that experience. We just passed all of the data points back to them to allow them to either manage the customer journey or the customer, you know, they're giving them tracking information, etc. But look, there's a growing number of wineries that are saying, listen, can you guys do it for us? And so we provide a fully outsourced service for those wineries. And not just wineries, but, you know, craft spirits producers and craft brewers as well now. And in that way, you know, it becomes just an extension of their business. You know, we respond to the customers if we're them, provide them all with the tracking details, notifications and, you know, sort of some point in the future we'll allow them to, you know, we'll leverage some of our resources to drive up sales as well, so, yeah, so it's a combination really. Depends on the customers needs. You know, we're finding more and more people love the idea of passing that on to someone else to manage.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. And then in terms of your fulfillment partners to get the from the warehouse out to the customer. I noticed that you're partnered with Australia Post. Is it just Australia Post that you go through?
Dean Taylor: We launched with Australia Post but we've since added another providers into our network and it really depends on, you know, where it's going, where it's coming from, where it's going and the size of and hyper delivery. So we've introduced couriers please into the network. We're also working with Direct Couriers, we've got Border Express and to do a lot of our regional deliveries and larger deliveries to business. And there's also, we're starting actually to develop out some of our own as well just to help support the trade. Deliveries in particular, which is quite a specialized need to deal with a venue in the city only at certain time of day and days of the week.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's fascinating. I think. What are the complexities around delivering wine and spirits and alcohol in general that a lot of people may not understand that aren't typically covered by a typical courier service that you really need to take into account?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, well look, obviously there's the whole responsible service of alcohol, so obviously making sure that recipients, the right person and they're at least 18 years old, have got ID to prove that. But now it's, you know, in South Australia and recently in New South Wales there's new regulations as well, particularly around same day deliveries. And so, you know, there's a whole code of conduct and new legislation that's been introduced to really try to manage that space. I guess it's been the explosion of, you know, like the Jimmy brings type alcohol services and tipples and the like. And so, so there's a whole lot of this compliance in there as well. And not every carrier can afford to send its drivers off to get responsible service training or building in the compliance piece into their PDAs and making sure that they're getting signatures and checking the ID and even the times of date which things can be delivered. So yeah, so look, it's a little bit more complex. Obviously it's fragile, it's bulky, it's heavy, prone to damage. It's not quite as easy as sending a, you know, a little satchel full of bras or you know, sort of iPhone, you know, across the country. But yeah, look, is something Which I believe is becoming more and more specialized. I guess we really want to be the company that sets the benchmarks for standard service in that center.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, brilliant. And where do you stand on compliance in terms of E commerce and alcohol at the moment? Do you feel like we've got the level right or do you think it's too strict or too relaxed?
Dean Taylor: Look, I think, I mean the industry is, it's predominantly been self regulating up to now. It's just the. Probably with COVID you know, there was, there was a whole lot of metrics which got distorted, you know, made it sound like everyone was getting, you know, at home getting lashed and you know, alcohol to get into the hands of miners. But the reality was it wasn't. I mean if you look at the whole consumption of alcohol over the last year, it's actually declined. You know, it was really what was happening was there was getting more and more going out through online deliveries, obviously, but less being consumed. So look, I think generally everyone's, everyone recognizes the risks associated with it and I think, you know, the, you know, there's certainly evidence to support that, you know, the self regulation is working at the moment. You know, look, it doesn't hurt to bring in some of these stricter controls just to make sure that there's no harm being done in particular to minors or, you know, having alcohol delivered into communities where it's just not meant to be as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. Now if we've got wineries or brewers or any alcohol producers listening to this and they go, oh, this sounds fantastic, we're on Shopify at the moment or we've got our other systems. How much technical integration does it take to actually move into having Wine Depot fulfill on on their behalf?
Dean Taylor: Look, we've developed standard integrations now with most of the E Comm platforms. So Shopify, big commerce, Woocommerce, Magento 1, 2. So, you know, we can, we can spin up an integration with them, you know, generally within 20, you know, we often do that, you know, so complimentary. A lot of work. If they've got a custom system, ideally, you know, we'd need to work with an API and connect that with our own API. But look, we've, we've managed to develop integrations with most of the ERP systems, accounting systems, point of sale systems, a whole bunch of things. So, you know, generally, you know, it's a pretty easy process, you know, as long as they've got someone who's got some technical skills to help us get a bigger things. And the trickiest thing is always making sure we've got the units to measure, right? So if they want one bottle delivered, they get one bottle vice versa. So, but look, it's, I guess that's where, you know, in many ways the platform we've created is not just helping them manage their inventory and waters and we're providing them almost like a device or a piece of technology that allows them to connect to the ecosystem. And so that includes your own technologies, but others like, as mentioned before, Hibino and other online retailers, and I think that's where technology's moved so far in the last 10 years that getting those connectors in place now is actually pretty simple. And that's really, I guess a lot of what our platform does for them is just make it simple, simple and streamline the whole process.
Nathan Bush: You must look at E commerce today compared to when you were launching cracker wines back then and go, oh, so simple to start E commerce now compared to when I was playing around in the early days.
Dean Taylor: Oh, mate, listen, the amount of money we tore up on custom sites, it scares me now I look back at it, you know, like, you know, we'd see a new feature come out, like refer a friend or something and you know, developers in would bunker down and two months later, you know, the team of six would pump out a new tool for you. And now you can subscribe to that sort of thing for $2.49 a month, you know, from one of those app stores. But yeah, look, it's come a long way and you know, those whole package systems like Shopify, they're just absolutely amazing. You know, they just continue to release functionality every day of the week. And you know, if you're, you're a, you know, a startup, you know, you're mad not to, to harness, you know, the power and potential of some of those platforms just to give you a running start, you know, maybe down the track if you, if you're going to be, you know, create an entirely new product, particularly now, you know, you might need to develop something yourself. But, but yeah, these days it's, it's, yeah, gosh, I wish, I wish they'd been around, you know, like, amount of dollars we could save.
Nathan Bush: But it's also too now you've got your custom services and niche providers, people like yourselves going, I need to work backwards now into the Shopify and into the BigCommerce and into the Magentos rather than the other way around. So sometimes you don't need that custom base because everyone who's doing the customizations outside of you are actually coming back your way.
Dean Taylor: That's right, yeah. No, it's so true. And I just, you know, I think this whole, you know, the last couple of years this headless architecture has developed as well, you know, and so if you get doing anything tricky, you know, you can build it in the background and then just use some of those E commerce platforms just as a way of dressing up the, you know, the customer experience. But yeah, now look, it's the move beyond E commerce now and they're now becoming fully functional ERP systems as well. You know, the ability to build flows in and make them, you know, sort of, you know, automate. Not just marketing but, but you know, a whole range of functions. It's, it's getting pretty powerful and you know, I think that we're only just seeing the start of what, you know, what potential could get unleashed from, from, from these. Once you start to layer a bit of AI.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. Have you got AI plans in the back of your mind?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, look, of course, I mean, I think you'd be mad too. These for us, I mean with the, particularly the direct to trade marketplace, we're dealing with a really broad range of user types that have very different needs and it's not quite as predictable I think, as consumers. I mean, whether you've got a venue that might be a Chinese restaurant and the type of products it needs versus a steakhouse, they're poles apart. But you can't just stereotype them and, and need to really pull in as many data points as possible to help refining and curating that offer for them. So yeah, we're certainly, we're at a stage now we just accumulate in the data to help us make those steps down the track. But we're certainly building the infrastructure to allow for that capability in due course.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. So the last question I've got on the model, if we've got potential vendors listening or wine merchants, what's the pricing model to be involved with? Wine Depot.
Dean Taylor: Yeah, sure. So look, with the, I guess if we look at just the logistics part to start with, we charge just a very simple handling fee. It's about $2 50 a case to process something through our network. And then the delivery fees depend on, I guess, where, where their stock's located, where it's going. But in most of the major capitals, it's as little as $7.95 a case to have it delivered. So compared to shipping it from, let's say it's Margaret river, it might cost you $35 or $40 a case to get wined across to someone in Sydney. It's a mammoth saving with the direct to trade marketplace. We're just working on 10% of the transaction value as a commission compared to the 35% the distributors take. And often a distributor will want another 10 to 15% on top of marketing support. So it's dramatically different. We're also obviously then they're getting access to our cheap delivery rates as well. So you know, there's it really, it's a bit of a no brainer when they, you know, they look at, I guess the amount of money that they can save, but also the amount of time they can save in getting their products to market. And as you know, as well, you know, there's a direct correlation between how quickly you can get your products delivered in terms of how quickly they'll come back and reorder and how quickly they'll give you a nice rating as well when you get it wrong. That all works in inverse at a compounded rate.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. You hear about it, don't you?
Dean Taylor: Do you do? Online can be very rewarding if you get it right, but it can be very clashing when you get it wrong. So yeah, so what we're trying to do is provide the platform that allows those winers to compete with big retailers.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's funny, it follows kind of a similar theme. We were speaking to Justin Hilberg, who's the MD of Surf Stitch and they've just opened up fulfillment for other brands as well using the Surf Stitch model. And we were talking a similar line around, you know, people who have been in the industry for so long and solved the fulfillment issue. When you're coming into E commerce for the first time, often your head's in that spot of how do I acquire new customers, how do I deliver a great online experience? And then it's the oh shit fulfillment moment. And if you can leverage people who have been in, because it's the hardest thing to crack. If you can leverage people who've been in it for a long time and get their efficiencies of scale and their process straight away, that's a huge competitive advantage.
Dean Taylor: Yeah, no, you're so right. And I think it does take, take a while to get there and just to get the scale. No, I mean there's a lot, there's a lot to even get the tech working in behind the scenes, you know. You know, often it's little things about just how you actually cut up those routes and the handovers between the different providers as it gets Passed down the line, people have this vision that this one driver will set off from Adelaide and, you know, be responsible for delivering your case of wine all the way to someone in Brisbane on a better cotton wool. But, but yeah, look, and I think if you look at the businesses that have done well in E commerce globally, I mean, it is the fulfillment that's actually separated them. I mean, Amazon in particular, obviously, Alibaba in China, there were businesses that focused every resource on fulfillment rather than the E comm component. And that's really what put them on the map. And, you know, even locally, you know, businesses like appliances online, you know, they, they cracked, you know, delivering big, bulky, you know, household appliances, you know, and they turned it into a fantastic experience and taking away your old ones, you know. So, yeah, look, I think, you know that the people who focus on that part, that's certainly the ones you tend to succeed.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. Now, we alluded to it at the start of our conversation around the massive growth, because you're ASX listed and where you've been in the last 18 months, the market valuation is about 10 times of where you were 18 months ago. What do you put that down to in terms of what have you done that you can go. The market now gets what we're doing.
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, I guess you're right. A big part of it is telling the story. And, you know, it is. Look, it's jumping on podcasts like this and investor briefings and just getting out and communicating with the industry and, you know, financial markets in particular, you know, with what we're doing. So look at this. That's a big part. I guess the other thing is that, you know, once you come into that space too, I mean, public companies, it's, it's a new experience for me. It's my first public company and so a lot of it I've been learning on the way. But if you say something you're going to do something, then you do it. You get rewarded. If you don't, you get punished. And so a lot of it is just making sure that you've got a clear vision, I guess a roadmap to achieve that vision. And then I guess just identifying all the different steps along the way to the investment community and then not getting. Try not to talk about what you're going to do, but talk about what you've done. And I've certainly found that to pay dividends, because there's sometimes things for whatever reason you can't do, it just doesn't happen, or there's a change of strategy or Covid. So you need to make a quick pivot. So keeping the market informed is really critical. We get congratulated by brokers and investors alike just about the frequency of our communications and giving them updates and not expecting them to understand the jargon or the, you know, the terminology that we, you know, we kick around and trying to put into simple, plain language and. But look, I think, you know, a lot of we've been in, you know, lucky to be in the right place at the right time. And, you know, when. When Covid kicked in, I mean, you know, first thing people did was stock up a toilet paper, then it was groceries, then it was alcohol. So, you know, we saw 100% volume growth overnight across our customer base because of that, you know, I guess, you know, we've got a. The investment market is full of a lot of weird, wonderful businesses out there, a lot of mining businesses and a lot of, you know, services. And, you know, there's certainly a strong tech sector, but, you know, there's not that many wine businesses or alcohol businesses. You know, you can count them on one hand. And so we've got a combination of wine, which, you know, lots of people love. We've got tech and then, you know, the logistics piece. And so it's sort of a. The holy trinity, I think, is really, you know, we've been able to excite people at different levels and then I think once they've understood the fact that, you know, there's so much vertical integration with what we do that, you know, we really begin to own a big part of the value chain. And by being agnostic and working with anyone and everyone, you know, we're not, we're not out there at the coal face trying to compete for customer sales, but we get a. We get a clip of every single bottle that gets moved. Now, I think once people realize the scale of the addressable market, not just here in Australia, but globally, then, you know, they get excited. So. But it's been a wonderful journey. I. Yeah, look, it's been such a learning curve. It's been exciting, exhilarating for me. And, you know, this week we topped $200 million market cap. That was. I'm still a bit dizzy from it, to be honest, but I think I've set out to create an ASX 200 company. I think the vision and the team that we've assembled certainly capable of achieving it. It's a matter of just how long it's going to take and we're just getting on with the job.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. And it has been something that I've enjoyed watching as well. Like most companies you follow on the asx, you get updates every half year and then if something big happens, but you do release every 30 days around new wineries that you've brought in because Covid could have hit and you could have benefited in terms of the huge uplift from consumers. But if you weren't bringing on more wineries and more, more suppliers, then you would have missed out on that growth. But you could see every month more and more wineries coming on and coming on quickly. From a B2B perspective, is there any specific tactics that you've used to get those wineries and alcohol providers jumping onto the platform quickly when an event like Covid happens?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, I mean we, so we work with about 400 brands at the moment, you know, so we, that's, you know, they've been accumulated over a year. Over a year. So, you know, it's roughly 30 or so a month that we've been signing on with. When Covid first hit, I mean, we realized that the industry was, you know, they had their backs to the wall and we knew that we relied, I guess, on their business for our businesses to survive. And so we came out very early and provided a regional winery support package where we waived a lot of costs and actually gave them some free credit to use towards getting up and running. And it was just to take away, take away the barriers to entry and make it really easy, a no brainer for them to get on. And then we sort of relied then on, I guess, the word of mouth for them to really get out and tell the rest of the community about us. And in regional areas, it, it's gold, right? It really is gold. I mean, so much business is done on handshake basis and through word of mouth referrals. And so, you know, by planting those seeds and then continue to water them, you know, we've been able to really get a strong presence in a lot of regions. And you know, I think in McLarenville now we've got more than 90% of the wineries that have got cellar doors using our services. And so that's predominantly through word of mouth. I mean, you know, we've, we've got to keep getting it right because obviously it can work against us. But, but, you know, like the, it's, it's been some of that grassroots strategy. You know, we certainly, we didn't throw any, you know, we threw nothing at marketing really and advertising. We, you know, invested on boots on the ground, getting out and knocking on doors and telling stories and seeing which ways we can help and getting behind industry initiatives. You know, when people were in trouble, you know, you know, whether it's raising money for bushfire support or whether it was female winemakers or there was someone trying to raise money for breast cancer by selling wine, we just do what we can to get in behind those as well. And I think that when people see that you're trying to be a good citizen within the industry, then they accept you into that space and welcome you with economics.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, brilliant. That sense of community definitely comes through in all your communications you mentioned there about telling stories and I can't let you go. One of the things that I read in my research is a story that you told around a collection of early 1800s French wines that you had a mystery man pick up from you. I think it was back in the cracker wine days, was it?
Dean Taylor: It was before then actually. That was in my, my wine up business. So that was my first business. So that was a business we offered climate controlled storage wine collectors. And to be honest, it was never meant to be a big business. It was meant to be a little side gig for me to make my wine drinking pack deductible. And again, right place, right time it took off and I ended up with 11 sites around the country and you know, probably about 85% market share in that space. But look, we can probably talk about who he is now, can reveal his identity. He has passed away. But it was, it was Rene Rivkin and yeah, which is sort of ironic now that you know, sort of public, public company space. But, but yeah, it came in, there was, I think there was seven bottles and they had been acquired from a Russian cellar that had been buried and uncovered I think actually somewhere near Georgia. And anyway it, these were amazing wines and you know, they were all hand blown bottles and you know, they're various states of, you know, decay. You know, none of them were really drinkable to be honest, but they were, you know, rarities and collectibles and so anyway, we were charged with storing them and then I don't know, it was after a couple of years, you know, there was a lad was sent down to pick these up because they'd been sold to someone. And anyway it was like something out of lock stock, you know, just making barrels. This sort of henchman sort of turned up. Muscle bound guy in his early twenties. And anyway he insisted on seeing the ones, right. Because they're all wrapped up in and you know, bubble wrap and then in Boxes and then another box. And I said, look, you know, we're happy to take him out, but once you take him out, you understand you're taking responsibility for these. You know, he's like, yeah, yeah, no problem. Anyway, you know, he was checking them out. God knows what he was looking for, because he was certainly no art historian or, you know, sort of, you know, had any sort of expertise in the area. But he had one of the bottles and anyway, he. I don't know what happened. It just slipped in his fingers and it just. It didn't fall far, like maybe 2 inches onto the timber table we had in the office. And it cracked. This bottle, it just cracked like an egg. It was just amazing to watch it crack, right. And all of this wine just spilled out over the table. Anyway, I had one of the lads that was working for me at the time, he's run over to the water fountain. He's got all of the plastic cups, these plastic cups, he's put them around the edges of this table and as the wine's spilling off, it's dripping into these cups and then he's putting the cups together. And Anyway, for about 15 minutes, this big burly guy didn't move a muscle. He was just in shock. He didn't know what to do. And he was obviously trying to process how he was going. Explained to his boss that he destroyed a bottle of wine with thousands of dollars. And anyway, it was really. It was a bit like that scene when I think, what was the Australian one where, you know, he buries the money on the beach. It was something. Something with that. So, but anyway, so. But anyway, my lad came back to me and he'd managed to collect enough wine and we sat there, we did. Cheers. And we. We got to drink. I think it was like an. I remember exactly. I think it was like an 1847 Chateau Lafitte. And it was. It was awful. It was terrible. But I can say that I've had a wine that old, so.
Nathan Bush: Oh, wow, what a story. I love it. And last one I've got for you. Do you have a good value wine as a wine connoisseur? Do you have a good value wine that you think we should be keeping an eye out or an upcoming winery that we should look out for?
Dean Taylor: Oh, look, I'm a mad Pinot Pinot Noir drinker. It's my go to drop and so I drink a lot of Pinot. But look, I've come across a wine recently. Look, it's not. It's not soup, it's not that cheap to be honest. But I think it's going to be a remarkable wine which will become incredibly sought after. And it's, it's made by a friend of mine, Rob Walters, and his vineyard is in masseter and it's called Place of Changing Winds. Put him out. But already, you know, the industry is just, there's chatter about these wines and you know, if you can get on his mailing list and get your hands on some of these, I mean, you know, even as one of his oldest mates, I was only able to get a couple of dozen this year and but look, I've only opened a couple of the wines so far, but they're absolutely gorgeous if you're into really good, you know, Pinot Noir. But look at the, at the value end. Look, I love giant steps actually. Yeah, they make wines for a couple of different regions, but the Yara Valley Pinot is fantastic. You often get it on special for about 25 bucks a bottle and yeah, it's a great drop.
[Voiceover]: When Tamburlaine Organic Wines were looking to push their expansion nationally and internationally, they realized that their custom built POS focused platform just wasn't going to cut it. They selected Shopify plus as the foundation for their expansion. Plus allowed Tamburlaine to create tiered member pricing using scripts, introduce web chat and see customer churn analytics. The result? A 30% conversion rate boost within the first six weeks of migration. Now that's something to cheers to. To read more of Tamburlaine's story and see other case studies, visit the customer section on shopify.com au/.
Nathan Bush: So what's next for yourself? I can't imagine that you're going to stop, stop still at any time. What's next for yourself and digital wine ventures?
Dean Taylor: Yeah, look, I'm running out of ideas, Nathan. I think I'm going to make this one, make this one my finale. But look, my background actually was an architect and I guess, you know, architecture is actually quite similar in some ways that the process of building buildings to building businesses. And so the only difference is, I guess is, you know, in business you get, you know, after building, you've got to keep it and run it, you know, which is the trick. But look, I certainly really enjoy creating things from scratch and building out new ideas. I think with wined Upper we've got a real opportunity to build a business off in a lot of different directions. And so I think there's, and I guess I've done all my businesses, I've done that, you know, start with one core product which we use to disrupt a market and, you know, get a foothold in it and then leverage off that to create other, you know, products and brands and services. And so, yeah, look, there's lots of ideas, I think, in terms of where we can grow out both, I guess, upstream, closer to the venues, you know, and sort of helping them with systems to manage their, you know, particularly inventory replenishment, reordering, but. But downstream into the wineries as well, you know, and taking more tech into those spaces. Certainly, you know, the platform we've built has applications in other markets. Like, we're the only fully integrated, you know, sort of trading, logistics and payment platform available in the world at the moment. And so, you know, we'll be keen to push that into places like particularly uk, which has got a strong legacy market for Australian wine. And the beauty is, like I said, when we push offshore, we've not just got a platform software application, we've got relationships with wineries that we can take as well. And so, you know, we could very quickly become the go to for Australian, New Zealand wine in any market. And so, yeah, watch your space. Obviously a bit hard at the moment, sort of expanding while, you know, we're all sort of locked up in our bubbles with COVID But, yeah, now, look, it's. It's certainly, you know, the thing I love about the industry and probably the part of the industry, I mean, is that, you know, it's old world meets new world, you know, and, you know, I get to spend time, you know, trumping around in vineyards and talking to people that are absolute salt of the earth and, you know, they're passionate and creative and, you know, they love their product and then, you know, trying to find ways to help them, you know, make their businesses more profitable through tech. And that's a real privilege to be able to work in an industry that's got, you know, roots in the ground, so to speak. Physical roots.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. Oh, very exciting and obviously huge potential and making a real difference to those businesses who you're fixing one of their biggest problems. Last one I've got for you. How can people, if they've heard this and they're really interested in connecting with you or your team, what's the best way for them to go about it?
Dean Taylor: Look definitely through the website, which is winedepot.com so w I m e-e p o-t.com our corporate site is DigitalWine Ventures. So there's more information about the ASX company there. And I guess our mandate, you know, we obviously wine Defend is the only investment at the moment, but we are looking to diversify over time into other parts of the, you know, the wine and beverage supply chain and yeah, sort of reach out through the website and we can connect them depending on, you know, whether you know, a supplier or a buyer, we can certainly point them in the right direction. And if you know, anyone's interested in getting on board as an investor to our stock code is DW8. Yeah. Put that on your watch list and join the comrades that are sort of helping us take this vision to the world.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. I can recommend even if you're not an investor, put on the watch list just to get the monthly updates. It's fascinating business to watch and invest in. So thank you Dean. Really appreciate you sharing your insights and your journey. Journey so far not a problem.
Dean Taylor: As a good thanks very much for having me. A pleasure.
[Voiceover]: Now it wasn't a path that I expected to go down too much with Dean, but what stayed with me after the conversation was the importance of communication and trust when building a business like Wine Depot. Despite being a tech platform and playing in the field of Ecom, all of which is usually automated, Dean and his team have spent a huge amount of time face to face with their grape farmers, AKA their wineries and their potential investors. He knows that no matter how good their tech is or advanced their data techniques, he doesn't survive if he doesn't bring along those key stakeholders for the journey. It was a great reminder that you need to assume the most basic level of communication before getting too fancy in
Nathan Bush: order to build trust.
[Voiceover]: And I think, I think that goes for all of us playing in E commerce. To finish up, I have three resources for you. Firstly, if you're a first time listener of Add to CART and you want to stay up to date with new episodes, head over to add to cart.com and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll let you know every time a new episode drops, as well as giving you my three takeaways from each episode and a link to the transcripts so you can know that this is an episode that you want to dive straight into. Secondly, if you want a weekly roundup of the best e commerce case studies, tools and research, sign up to the High Five Friday newsletter which is delivered to inboxes at 8am every Friday morning. I read all the e commerce news and send you the bits that I think you can take action from. Sign up at 12high12h I g h.com au forward/high5 and the last thing. If you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to esweettalent.com we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands. Check it out. Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want to discuss your next move. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cartoon.
