August 29, 2008

Domain Chandon, Inc. Makes the Switch to Submerce Platfrom

Submerce announced today that Domaine Chandon, Inc has signed an agreement that their company will be switching their eCommerce, Wine Club, Order Management and Point of Sale systems for the Newton Vineyards brand to the Submerce eBusiness solution. The decision was made to switch after an extensive and in-depth evaluation period that resulted in Submerce coming out on top based on many factors such as reliability, scalability, operational costs and ease of use.

"The Submerce development team has been hard at work at not only coming out with a larger list of standard features, they also like to take it two steps past the basics", says Tim Holtermann, Senior Developer for Submerce. "We've been known for some time now for pushing the technological limits for the wine industry and we plan on keeping that reputation for a long time", continues Holtermann. "We look forward to working with each of our clients, both current and potential ones as each of them bring great ideas and feedback that help make Submerce the eBusiness platform of choice for so many wineries", says Tim.

Submerce's latest release, codenamed Whitehorse, has continued on the theme of delivering an unbeatable package that offers 2-3 times the features, far more scalability with the Submerce Expansion Modules and administrative configurability for the same price as a competing product.

We're very excited to get the Newton Vineyards project underway as we have identified many areas where the Submerce will offer the brand opportunity to grow their sales, provide a better online consumer experience while delivering reliability and a product that is truly easy to use", says Jonathan Elliman, Submerce's Chief Technology Officer. "The continued success of the Submerce platform is a good example that there is a choice when selecting an eBusiness platform for the wine industry and the reason why so many companies such as Copia, Foster's Wine Estates, Brown-Forman and Domaine Chandon, Inc. have made the positive switch to Submerce."

Your winery or store can benefit from switching to the Submerce platform just as many others have. You owe it to yourself and your company to schedule a demonstration of the Submerce eBusiness platform by calling (707) 255-4393 or visit http://www.submerce.com.

August 19, 2008

Submerce Releases Google Analytics Expansion Module

Submerce announced today the release of the Google Analytics Expansion Module which offers customers on-demand access to ecommerce data which tracks site visits, click trails, time spent on each page, conversion trends, and referrals. These analytics allow subscribers to find out how their ecommerce customers are arriving at their website with detailed reports based on their online ads, email promotions and search engine Meta text. Monitoring web-traffic and optimizing online marketing expenses has never been easier.

Submerce™’s unsurpassed built-in search engine optimization tools coupled together with a solid online marketing program enables the partnership with Google Analytics to offer near real-time feedback via hundreds of detailed reports. Flexible graphing tools and the ability to export data allows you to compare large trends, time periods, and geo-graphical areas from which customers are making purchases in order to facilitate key marketing decisions.

Learn more about the Submerce platform and their multiple Expansion Modules by visiting http://www.submerce.com/ or by calling (707) 255-4393

August 13, 2008

Submerce Releases Learning Management System Integration Expansion Module

Submerce announced today the release of their latest Submerce Expansion Module that allows their eBusiness platform to integrate with many of the leading Learning Management Systems (LMS) based on the popular XML data format. This new module allows existing Submerce powered websites offer online courses to be purchased and immediately allow the customer to view the course via streaming video.

"We've been in the streaming media industry for over a decade and have been using our own Execustream platform to offer online webcasts and courses, but we understand that there are many other LMS systems out there and we want to make sure that our customers have a choice", says Jonathan Elliman, Chief Technology Officer at Submerce. "In the next couple of weeks, Copia will be offering online courses that cover topics such as cooking, food and wine pairing, gardening and more" continues Elliman.

You can learn more about the Submerce platform by visiting http://www.submerce.com/ or by calling (707) 255-4393

August 10, 2008

Submerce Releases Card in the Box Integration Expansion Module

Submerce announced today the release of the much anticipated Card in the Box integration with the Submerce eBusiness platform that allows online shoppers to add a personalized card as part of their purchase.

"Our developers have been very busy building any many new features and third party integrations as part of the v5.1 release of the Submerce eBusiness platform", says Sarah Elliman, Director of Sales and Marketing for Submerce. "We wanted to make sure that this was ready for the upcoming holiday shopping season and finished it way ahead of schedule", continues Elliman. "Beringer Vineyards is in the final stages of launching on Submerce and we wanted to make sure that this was part of their premiere on our platform among other features their previous system could never offer. We wanted to make sure that we were not just replacing a system, but we were greatly improving upon it from all points of view; from the administrator to the customer to the fulfillment house" says Sarah.

Submerce continues to set the technology standard for the wine industry and you owe it to yourself and your company to see a demonstration of Submerce. You can learn more about Submerce visiting http://www.submerce.com/ or by calling (707) 2554393.

August 02, 2008

Submerce Releases More Details Regarding v5.1 Features

Submerce announced today more details regarding the list of features that are included in their latest release of their Submerce eBusiness solution.

Content Management

The latest release offers more website design flexibility than ever before by allowing web designers the ability to customize layouts based on a particular product, webpage or homepage paired with new dynamic product catalog queries. New queries such as "Show Most Sold Products" that is selected based on a date range even segment those products based on specific product meta data such as wine category, bottle size, vintage, winemaker, varietal and more. The release also offers access to new Automated Import and Export tools as part of the ever growing list of Submerce Expansion Modules that allow seamless integration with 3rd party systems such as AMS, Wine Direct and JDE, even be notified when new products are introduced into Submerce by these systems.

Wine Club Management

'Whitehorse' includes new features that log the history of each of your wine club members as well as account notes so your customer service teams can quickly access a customer's order purchase history, shipment history, contact information and even their friends' addresses. More detailed pre-process and post-process error reporting and tools that allow you to sub-batch when declines are too many to do manually. The new release also offers an industry first by allowing administrators to allow vacations based on club and limit those vacations to number of shipments, number of days and number of times they can go on vacation a year.

Advanced Reports

Our customers told us that reporting has become more and more a part of their daily lives, so Submerce responded by working with clients and industry professionals to add over another 150 over on top of the existing 450 that have been available for nearly 2 years now- still more than any other wine industry eBusiness application. New reports such as showing which wine club members are producing a trend of too many declines during wine club processing, which club has the most customers in number of states, which customers re-order past shipments and more. "You owe it to yourself to witness a demo first hand and have one of our representatives show you how you can quickly determine who are your good customers and less profitable ones", says Jonathan Elliman, Founder and CTP for Submerce. "Wine Clubs are only successful if they are profitable and just because your clubs have a large number of members, that doesn't matter when it comes down to profitability", continues Elliman. "Until the club member has received at least 3-4 shipments, will your club member turn a profit for you as most club managers do not track the number of costs involved in attracting wine club members, managing them and keeping them happy", says Elliman. "Our goal with Submerce is to offer the tools and reports that club managers need to survive in the club marketplace."

Data Warehouse Integration

New configurable data warehouse tools are included in the release that can be paired with the Automated Import and Export Expansion Module that can be configured to export data on a pre-determined schedule to an external network. From customer and member lists to product inventory and order history can be exported and imported on a daily basis. "Bigger wineries need more automation and integration with third party systems and the combination of our new data warehouse tools paired with our scheduler programs makes this a seamless transportation of data anywhere in the world", says Tim Holtermann, Senior Programmer at Submerce.

New Expansion Modules Available

Beyond the new automation tools, Submerce has also released four new Submerce Expansion Modules that can be added to the platform at any time. The highly-anticipated Recipe Engine has been released that allows web designers to load recipes into Submerce and pair them with any other product in the database. The selected recipes are then made available on the eCommerce website which allows customers to view, comment and even print the recipes. "We've been hearing about this request for months and our development team found a great way to incorporate this functionality into Submerce.

The second expansion module released is the integration with Card in the Box which is available through the Submerce eCommerce sales channel and with in a couple of weeks will be available through the Submerce Point of Sale and Submerce Order Management System. Customers can view, personalize and add cards to their order which is then sent with their shipment. "This is perfect for customers who want to give friends and family gifts and personalize it", says Sarah Elliman, Sales and Marketing Director for Submerce. "Beringer Vineyards will be premiering on the Submerce platform with a gamut of our Submerce Expansion Modules and we believe this greatly improve the customer experience both online and through their phone sales", continues Elliman.

The third module made available is the all powerful Customer Targeting and Preferences system which allows administrators to target customers based on a number of available customer contact information and purchase history. “We’ve been working on this system for nearly a year and the results are nothing short of “oh, my God” as one of our customers said to us”, continues Jonathan. Have an upcoming event want to invite all your customers who bought more than $1000 worth of wine within a 50 mile radius of the winery? That’s a 15 second operation in Submerce. You want more? Ok, how about segmenting a list of all the customers who like Pinot Noir from Carneros in a 750ml bottle that also like single vineyard designate wines? Submerce doesn’t even break a sweat by delivering a list of the customers, their contact into and the value of their orders to date.

Last but not least is the release of the Submerce integration module for JDE. Built to their precise specifications, Submerce now offers seamless integration with JDE for sales details and receipts reporting. “This was no small project to overcome, but our team already had past experience with JDE, so the results were nothing short of perfection”, says Jonathan Elliman, Founder and CTO for Submerce.

ShipCompliant: Integrated

Submerce has been integrated with Six88’s ShipCompliant for over 8 months, but the development team wanted to push the limit of the system by spending the last two months completely re-writing the level of integration to find opportunities for efficiency and user interface. As part of the re-write, Submerce’s integration offers seamless integration at the eCommerce, POS, OMS, eCommerce and Order Manager levels; something that no other integrated partner offers today.

Submerce customers now have the ability to track their compliance via ShipCompliant across all sales channels through a single interface in real time which is unique to the wine industry.

Address and age verification systems have also been made available as part of the new release which greatly reduces the number of shipping errors and offers a bit of security by ensuring the person who is purchasing the wine is at least 21 years old.

“We’re very excited about the new level of integration and we believe Submerce will set the level of expectations that customers will require from an eBusiness solution coupled to a compliance management system”, says Nicole Wilson, Submerce Specialist. “My experience of working for a large winery drove me to come to Submerce as I was fascinated how a startup can create such a powerful system, draw industry attention and continue to push the envelop successfully”, continues Wilson. “After working with Submerce at a winery, I was hooked and had to come work here to be part of the growing success.”

Each release of Submerce continues on a theme of offering innovative solutions to an ever-changing wine industry. By being a small company filled with former wine industry professionals, the company can make quick decisions to keep their competitive edge. “We’ve been very quiet for a number of years and in 2007, we said that 2008 was going to be our year, and so far we’ve witnessed a major switch to the Submerce platform”, says Sarah Elliman, Sales and Marketing Director for Submerce. “Just in the past six months, we have brought on 8 brands from Foster’s Wine Estates, Copia, Sanford Winery, Evergreen Vineyards, Brown Forman and many more”, says Elliman. “All these plus many more that will be launched before year is over; all while delivering customer service that is second to none.”

August 1, 2008

Brown-Forman Selects Submerce as eBusiness Platform of Choice

NAPA, California. Submerce announced today that Brown-Forman has selected Submerce as their eBusiness platform of choice for two of their prestigious California wineries. The news follows Submerce's announcement of the release of their latest version of the software codenamed 'Whitehorse' which offers more standard features than any other eBusiness application designed for the wine industry.

Submerce will be releasing further details with regards to this new partnership on August 6th.

If you are a winery or wine merchant that believes your current system is not meeting your expections or limits the growth of your company, you deserve to schedule a demonstration of the Submerce platform today and see for yourself why so many small to large companies are making a smart business decision by switching to Submerce. By switching to Submerce, you will receive the most powerful eBusiness application designed for the wine industry backed by a customer service team that is second to none.

July 22, 2008

Copia Launches on Submerce eBusiness Platform

Submerce announced today that Copia: The American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts has successfully launched their new eCommerce website on the Submerce eBusiness Platform. Chosen for Submerce's sophisticated and flexible content management system (CMS), Copia knew in order to be successful on the internet today, they needed a system that offers the ability to sell and stream rich media content which draws traffic to both their online and brick and mortar location in Napa. As part of their launch strategy, Copia will be offering online courses for sale, which will allow visitors to watch a number of courses such as food and wine pairing demonstrations, cooking demos, tips on gardening and much more.

You can visit their new website by going to http://www.copia.org.

July 15, 2008

Submerce Releases Version 5.1 "Whitehorse" Ahead of Schedule

Submerce announced the news today that they have officially released their version 5.1 of the Submerce eBusiness platform to the general public which includes many new features while including hundreds of improvements that continues to make Submerce the most flexible, scaleable and powerful eBusiness solution geared for the wine industry.

As part of the release, Submerce has released the much anticipated Customer Targeting and Preferences Expansion Module as well as their new integration with Card in the Box. A completely re-written integration with Six88's ShipCompliant system is also included in the release that offers a deeper integration than any other integrated partner which offers compliance checking across all the Submerce sales channels such as Point of Sale, eCommerce, Wine Club, OMS and more.

"We are extremely excited about the latest release and have many more new features that will be continued to be released over the coming months", says Jonathan Elliman, Chief Technology Officer for Submerce. "Submerce is continuing to be identified as the vendor of choice for the wine industry and over the next few weeks, we will be announcing more wineries that will be switching to Submerce to meet their growing demands for better technology to manage their sales channels", continues Elliman. "Beyond Foster's Wine Estates pending launch for eight of their brands, Submerce has also recently launched Copia's new eCommerce website as well as Evergreen Vineyards located in Oregon."

While the demand for the Submerce platform continues to gain speed, Submerce has also continued to meet that demand by expanding their team in their Napa office. Kelly Barfield who was the former Finance Director for Epps Chevrolet has recently joined the team at Submerce. Kelly's family has a long history of blazing trails in the wine industry. Her father was a long time employee at Beringer and currently is the winemaker for another Submerce client, Del Dotto Vineyards. "We have also acquired some additional employees that will be stationed in our Oregon and Napa offices and we will be releasing additional information on those team members over the next couple of weeks", says Sarah Elliman, Sales and Marketing Director for Submerce.

If you want to grow your sales while decreasing your operating costs by using software that is easy to use while offering a single interface for all your sales channels, we recommend that you schedule a demonstration of the Submerce platform today. Please contact Sarah Elliman, Director of Sales and Marketing at (707) 255-4393 or learn more about the Submerce platform by visiting http://www.submerce.com

July 11, 2008

Submerce Set to Release Version 5.1 Ahead of Schedule While Delivering More Features Than Planned

Submerce announced today that they will be releasing Submerce eBusiness v5.1 a week ahead of schedule while including features that were not expected until an end of Q3 release. The new update includes an additional 150 reports to their popular Advanced Reporting Expansion Module which brings the total to over 600 analytical tools and reports. The update also includes Submerce’s long anticipated Customer Targeting and Preferences module which allows administrators to automatically target customers via mailing lists based on factors such as product purchasing trends, demographics and memberships. Other new features such as new and improved CRM features help administrators locate, manage and communicate with customers more easily.

“We’re really excited about how much we’ve able to include in this next update as it includes so many features and improvements we can’t speak enough about it”, says Jonathan Elliman, Submerce’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer. “We continue to listen to our existing customers and our new ones to keep ahead of the demand curve”, continues Elliman. “As Submerce’s success continues to resonate with the wine industry, we’ve also been able to acquire some really talented people to our development team”, continues Jonathan. “We’ve already updated some of our key accounts to the latest version and the feedback is ‘Wow!.’”

With the the growth of Submerce's development team new template options and content management featues that were planned to be released in Q3, but have been able to make them available in v5.1 giving web designers even more flexibility than any other wine-related Content Management System available today. " The new content features such as dynamic navigation, full control over CSS files and layouts are just one of the many features that Submerce has had for a number of years and the new template options and display options has pushed our CMS to a whole new level", says Brian Schoenfeld one of Submerce's CSS designers. "In my experience of working with many different CMS systems before coming to Submerce I was truly amazed what Submerce had a year ago, and with the flexibility that we've been able to incorporate into the system today, it's truly priceless since now administrators have even more control than ever before", says Schoenfeld.

Ahead of schedule and in time for this upcoming holiday season, Submerce now offers the ability to create and manage product bundling and gift baskets. Based on the same interface as the Submerce Wine Club Shipment builder, the product bundling feature allows administrators to build product bundles or gift baskets with the existing products in the database which takes just a couple of minutes to complete. "We've been wanting to add product bundling for some time, but we wanted to do it right the first time", says Nicholas Billings, Customer Service lead at Submerce. "The new system allows administrators to create a master SKU that will be used to identify the bundle, then select the products that make up the bundle from other SKUs in the database wile also including a unique description, shipping options, graphics and more", continues Billings. "With our available inventory modules, this is managed on the fly and will remove the bundle's availability if any of the components are not available."

"We have many new customers that will be launching on Submerce v5.1 in the next couple of weeks such as Beringer Vineyards, Souverain, Meridian, Etude, Stags’ Leap and Cellar 360 just to name a few", says Jonathan Elliman. "These will join others such as Evergreen Vineyards, Copia: The Center for Food, Wine and the Arts and other wineries both in California and Oregon have launched with tremendous success in the last few months and many more will be announced in the coming weeks."

More details will be released about the v5.1 software release will be made available the week of July. Any current Submerce customers are encouraged to schedule software updates as part of their SUP program or schedule a demonstration to experience all the benefits of the latest release. To schedule a demonstration, please call (707) 255-4393 or visit http://www.submerce.com/ for more details.

June 27, 2008

Submerce Readies Release of Submerce v5.1 Codename ‘Whitehorse’

Submerce announced today that their development team is on time for the release of Submerce v5.1 which has been running under the development title ‘Whitehorse’. Set the release on time in mid-July, ‘Whitehorse’ is designed to push Submerce to another level of web-based technology. Included in the release is the long anticipated availability of Submerce’s Customer Targeting and Preferences Expansion Module which allows users to quickly develop targeted email campaigns in minutes based on demographics, purchase trends, geography relationships and more. Other features will include an additional 150 reports added to the Advanced Reports Expansion Module, bringing the total available analytics and reports to over 600. New standard features will be part of the release that will expand upon many of the existing features while including new ones such as new content management tools, over 20 new additional features to the Submerce Order Manager and many new enhancements to both the Submerce Point of Sale and Order Management Systems.

“We continue to grow our install base at a sustainable rate so that we can keep to our philosophy of working with each of our customers closely”, says Jonathan Elliman, Chief Technology Officer for Submerce. “By throttling our sales, we keep our commitments with our customers intact and on target, while our customers continue to benefit from our quick customer service response times while also keeping development going full steam ahead” continues Elliman. “The next release continues to build upon the foundation of v5 in many ways, while adding new tools way ahead of schedule which is tough to say with any software development company.”

The next generation of Submerce has already been in the hands of many existing of Submerce’s customers and the feedback has been very good. One of those customers is Foster’s Wine Estates which is due to launch on the Submerce platform for eight of their largest brands over the summer. In the Foster’s instance, Submerce is replacing three disparate systems that will allow their data warehouse team to focus on analyzing data, rather than spending all their team keeping the systems running.

The next release will also include enhancements to the Submerce Wine Club Management system by offering new batching tools, reports, cancellation tracking and a deeper integration with ShipCompliant across all sales channels. Additional Will Call options and reports are also part of the release which will help wine club managers better manage their wine club members that enjoy picking up their wine club shipment at the winery.

“Submerce has always been the market leader when it comes to tracking Will Call customers by offering some of the most sophisticated inventory depletion tools available for the wine industry”, says Nick Billings, Submerce QA Engineer. “Our customers are continually amazed about how easy Submerce is to use on both the back office and the eCommerce side”, continues Billings. “It’s a major compliment to our development team as they take extra steps necessary to ensure that complex tasks are easily done without potential confusion or missed steps. They also like to know that there’s a Submerce User Manual and Knowledgebase available 24/7 in case they want to learn more about some of the tips and tricks software the software has to offer”, says Nick.

 The Submerce OMS and POS systems are continually being recognized for being groundbreaking interface that allows wineries to identify their customers and club members quickly, automatically apply their club discounts while also providing the CRM tools necessary to provide valuable customer service”, says Tim Holtermann, Senior Programmer at Submerce. “With more and more companies understanding the benefits of one system managing all of your company’s sales channels, Submerce stands alone in the marketplace. There is no other system for any price that offers the level of performance, scalability, integration options and easy of use”, continues Holtermann.

The Submerce platform offers customers a wide range of sales channel management opportunities as well as sophisticated inventory management tools that are not available in any other wine industry-related eBusiness application. We encourage anyone that would like to see Submerce first hand to contact us for an in depth demonstration by calling Submerce at (707) 255-4393 or at www.submerce.com.

June 11, 2008

Blicker Pierce Wagner Wine Merchants Upgrades to Submerce v5

Submerce announced today that Blicker Pierce Wagner Wine Merchant’s (BPWWM) renewed their commitment to the Submerce platform by upgrading to latest release of Submerce v5 which includes a completely overhauled Order Management System (OMS). BPWWM has been utilizing the Submerce platform since 2006 to manage their eCommerce, phone sales, inventory and large amounts of customer data with one single application. Their decision to upgrade was based on the facts behind the new features and tools available in the latest release. One of recently introduced features is the completely redesigned Submerce OMS which offers a streamlined interface and sophisticated CRM tools that allow the user to increase sales while providing better customer service in a short amount of time.

“BPWWM has been a long time user of the Submerce platform and a good success story considering they started with two people and now they have ten times the employees and a healthy sales growth track record”, says Sarah Elliman, Director of Sales and Marketing for Submerce. “They were one of the early adopters of our original Sales Order Manager and over the course two and half years have watched Submerce grow from a very simple eCommerce and OMS platform to what it offers today”, continues Elliman.

“Our development team has been hard at work and Submerce v5 is only the beginning. Just in the past 3 months, we have added six highly skilled and trained developers so that we can handle new customer requests while readying the next release of our software which is due in mid July”, says Sarah. “Submerce’s goal is to continue a sustainable development plan that meets the needs of our client’s growing demands of the platform and be sure to stay ahead of it wherever possible”, says Tim Holtermann who is Submerce Senior Programmer. “We are still looking for qualified individuals as we have bigger plans in store for Submerce in the second half of the year and we know to be a successful company in any industry, you need the right people in place”, continues Holtermann.

The next release of Submerce, which has been codenamed ‘Whitehorse’ will be focusing on the expansion on the existing CRM and Club Management features that will offers more standard tools that are not available in any other wine related system. Working closely with some of the largest wineries in the business like Foster’s Wine Estates, the Submerce development team has been hard at work by setting their sites on delivering tools that streamline some of the daily duties for wine club managers and customer service teams. “We have already released a good portion of ‘Whitehorse’ to some of our existing customers and the reaction is that they are speechless when it comes to working with some of the tools”, says Jonathan Elliman who is the Chief Technology Officer for Submerce.

“We have had a very successful year since the wine industry has now recognized Submerce as the eBusiness platform of choice”, says Elliman. “Our long term development plan has allowed us to gain that recognition and wineries are realizing that while the other wine-related eCommerce platforms have been busy selling, they haven’t been busy developing, nor supporting their customers very well. This makes our job both easy and hard since once they see the level of features available in Submerce, they are hooked”, continues Jonathan. “Not only is our platform far superior, our customer service rivals the rest as we’re committed to offering service that is second to none.”

“Submerce has always had the philosophy of pooling the ideas from our customer base to steer the future development of the Submerce platform”, says Tim Holtermann, Senior Programmer at Submerce. “By combining the ideas from all of our clients, we can continue deliver tools that our customer base needs to manage their businesses while maintaining our competitive advantage- it’s a win-win for both teams”, says Holtermann.

The Submerce platform offers customers a wide range of sales channel management opportunities, from Point of Sale to eCommerce, as well as sophisticated inventory management tools that are not available in any other wine industry-related eBusiness application. We encourage anyone that would like to see Submerce first hand to contact us for an in depth demonstration by calling Submerce at (707) 255-4393 or at www.submerce.com.