Lindsay Cornelissen founded Wines with Attitude in October 2014, a passion project that helped her escape the City London. It’s been a steep learning curve over the last 3 years – and there’s still a lot to learn, but the customer base is growing at a steady 20% year on year.
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About the business
- eCommerce Business Structure – Online Only
- Product Range Scale – niche
- Wine by the bottle, in the price range of 12-45 pounds, with a minimum purchase of six bottles
- On a Bespoke platform
- Based in London and selling to the UK
Listen to learn why Lindsay is dissatisfied with the limited information given to consumers about their wine, and how she takes that pain away and helps them pick the wine for them.
Getting Started
Lindsay had a long and successful career in client relationship management, and has always had a passion for good customer service. The work was stressful, so she and her husband went to a night school to study wine exams several years ago, and ever since, it’s been a pipe dream of Lindsay’s to have a career in wine. In 2008, she began going to night school to study at the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, graduating in 2011 with a diploma. Lindsay left the city in 2013, and the idea of working for herself instead of finding a new job in a new corporation appealed to her.
Through talking with people and doing research, she realized that there was a niche she could fill, and she started Wines With Attitude.
Listen to learn the benefits of talking to people and making connections, and how Lindsay’s connections have helped her.
The Team
Lindsay has some web developers, her husband helps her with finances, her husband and friends help her with tastings, and her wines are kept in a bonded warehouse. Beyond that, it’s all her.
Listen to learn why keeping wares in a bonded warehouse assists with cashflow.
Wines With Attitude App
Lindsay attended a course for setting up an app without needing to know how to code. She had a great time, and ended the day with an interesting app that looks fantastic and includes her brand qualities and logos. It’s a gateway to her website and a way of communication, but will have more advantages as she develops it more, hopefully including a loyalty program.
Rewarding Loyalty
The early customers of Wines With Attitude have been supportive and loyal. Lindsay even tested out delivery and packaging on them. Those early loyal customers are the core of the business, and she wants to look after them. She’s committed to good customer service. Without your customers, you’re nothing.
The SEO Nightmare
For any business, you must admit to yourself what you are not good at and seek help in those areas. Lindsay did just that with her SEO and social media, but it didn’t work out and she learned some valuable lessons. She learned that she has to trust her gut feelings, be clear about what she wants, get everything in writing, and keep tabs on what is going on.
Now she’s doing her own SEO and social media, and while she’s definitely seeing improvement, she’d still like to hire someone else to handle those areas, but she’s going to be more careful about who she hires for it next time.
Listen to learn why outsourcing SEO and social media successfully is so difficult.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- Email newsletters
You can hear about all this on the podcast, for free – right now…
Tool Top Tip
- Quill Engage
Listen to learn how Quill Engage helps simplify Google Analytics
Start Up Top Tip
Always put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Go to your customers and get feedback. Put your customer first.
Listen to learn how Lindsay gets feedback and how the feedback helps her.
Interview Links
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