2024 BEST PRACTICE AWARDS

Best Technology Innovation

by KRYSTINA SKIBO

“ It was a long time in the making , but I think that this really fulfills the brand promise ,” says Stacy Kriedeman , marketing communications , branding & design director for FWGS . “ It ' s not just an e-commerce site . It also has a plethora of information on it to help educate consumers about wine and spirits as well as give them inspiration . We certainly hope that they enjoy it .”

Some of the features that come with the new FWGS platform include :

Enhanced ease of use and ordering . The mobile-optimized site features easy to read navigation and page content and offers customers more ways to shop through the addition of the option to buy online and pick up in store ( BOPIS ).

Streamlined account management . An upgraded dashboard allows users to easily navigate , filter and view previously placed orders , reference favorited products and recipes and access user taste profiles .

Expanded content and customer engagement . The ability to better engage FWGS . com customers via videos , GIFs and lifestyle imagery allows for higher clicks , longer page views and more website visits . Increased SEO makes it easy for customers to locate information via web search and tap / click address links as well as the ability to search by zip code , city and state or store ID to get directions to stores and store events .

• Optimized site search . Predictive search capability allows customers to enter keywords and choose from a dropdown populated with the top three search results or view all returned search results for the keywords entered .

Simplified lottery registration for limited-availability , high-demand products . An improved registration process enables entrants of PLCB Limited-Release Lotteries to easily navigate , understand and complete lottery registration and supplies entrants with registration confirmation via an auto-generated email .

Maximized purchasing and selling for e-commerce exclusives . Due to improved BOT mitigation efforts to prevent fraudulent ordering of highly in-demand , limited inventory items and the new website ’ s ability to handle more traffic and eliminate timeout errors , more consumers can purchase these highly desired products . The new site also has functionality to better restrict orders to in-state residents and impose bottle limits on certain products .

Improved tracking and analytics . Greater breadth and flexibility in terms of SEO , paid advertising and search tactics allow for the generation of increased site traffic and sales , while improved analytics and the incorporation of pixels across product pages sitewide enables better , more reliable tracking of consumer behavior and the attribution of e-commerce sales to marketing efforts .

“ Whenever you have projects of this size and scope , there will always be unexpected challenges ,” Kriedeman notes on the development of the platform . “ When we were developing the initial wire frames and digital strategy behind the site , we were not anticipating a rollout of BOPIS at the time . That ’ s a pretty sizable change , but it wasn ’ t something that we couldn ’ t overcome , and I think we did it well .”

www . stateways . com Fall 2024 • StateWays 21