WineDirect

Pros

I like how easy it is to create POS options to help us sell our wine. It's easy to toggle between different POS locations (tasting room vs event centers where wine is being sold)

Cons

There aren't many cons, other than the spreadsheet is a little long and difficult to navigate. I also wish it was easy to override sold out events, i.e. we have a class that sells out online but we have no shows, so we have additional space. In the POS, it's not possible (to my knowledge) to override those sold out classes to continue selling tickets. Maybe it's operator error!

Pros

the POS side of this software is really convenient and useful for our tasting room staff. It's easy to set your own layout, include photos, take separate payments, refund/exchange. All things that have helped the functionality of our tasting room.

Cons

The reporting is not easy to use and sometimes when I add a modifier to the report (ie. "don't include zero quantity) it will still show up in the report. the tools that are there for the website can be a bit confusing and not always the easiest to work with. I really don't like that we can't change a shipping address because it checks compliance before creating the label.

Pros

The ability to search for products via name makes finding items in our large database so easy for our employees!

Cons

The customer service experience has been terrible any time we have needed trouble shooting.

Pros

The front end user interface at Point of Sale is easy to use on Ipad registers.
The website works well and can be customized easily.
Shipping is easily done and integrates seamlessly with UPS and Sovos for legal compliance and reporting of alcohol sales to states.

Cons

The reports that the system generates are inadequate for analysis of customer trends and for marketing purposes. Our staff accountant can get just barely what she needs for her entries to Quickbooks.
Support has not always been available if the system is having issues with the cloud server and has occasionally gone down in the middle of a busy retail day.

The credit card swipe hardware that plugs into the lightening port of the Ipad fails all the time. They have not yet made chip reader available. Many times we have to manually enter the card and the customers feel uncomfortable about that at times.

Pros

This software is easier to learn than expected, and it integrated with our other systems well.

Cons

The software has many restrictions that cause issues from a business standpoint. For example, you can only make 1 return per transaction. After that, the system will not allow any additional returns on that order. This causes problems from an inventory standpoint .

Many of the processes are very long and require MANY steps. The old system that we used was much more intuitive. Additionally, there are many issues that Wine Direct creates on their own. The system will randomly formulate new lists that move members from non shipping to shipping. Charges will show as pending on our end, but will go through on the clients end.

Every time you click on an order, you have to research the customer name. For example, if you are looking for a particular sale, and have to open multiple orders to find it, you have to re-search the customer name after opening every order. Seems like a very small thing, but we have this issues multiple times a day.