Fiona Phillips, Cybercellar.com CEO, says with over 70% of the company’s business coming from overseas, it made perfect sense to open international distribution centres. “The rand has strengthened against the dollar and euro over the past couple of years, which has made South African wines more expensive than equivalent international wines, especially when you take into account the freight costs to get South African wines to the international consumer. We therefore needed a new strategy to keep the price of our South African wines competitive,” she says. To do this, Cybercellar.com has put in place a warehouse distribution model which involves storing South African wines on consignment in two distribution hubs overseas. “Cybercellar.com is therefore providing an end-to-end solution for its international clients, providing a comprehensive website to buy South African wines, and facilitating delivery direct to their door within 3 to 5 days of order, without them having to pay huge international shipping fees,” she says. Phillips says the first warehouse was recently opened in Sonoma, California and holds South African wines for the American market. A second warehouse will be opened in Brussels in Belgium before the end of the year to supply the UK and European markets. While there has been a lot in the press recently about supply chain optimisation (SCO) in the wine industry and suggestions that local wineries re-consider the use of importers and wholesalers across Europe, Phillips says very little has been done about offering new channels for the wineries to sell through, resulting in wineries been unable to effectively implement SCO. “Cybercellar.com’s new solution enables effective SCO for local wineries by opening up a channel for all participating wineries to list their wines on an international site which facilitates delivery directly to the international buyer.” To help position Cybercellar.com as an international business, the company registered itself under a .com URL (www.cybercellar.com) where as before it was only using a .co.za address. The co.za address will function using the old site until the end of November 2005 as the change over is completed. From then on it will point to the .com URL. Phillips says the change to a .com address has been accompanied by a completely new look and feel with a host of new functionality. “This includes flavour profiling of each user, a first for local and international wine sites. We’ve also added a new loyalty programme, a cross referral programme and the usual gift vouchers, affiliate programmes and a wine club,” she says. The new site also provides the facility for customers to see which wines are in the nearest warehouse and pay for the wine and delivery in their local currency, Phillips adds. Once the two hubs are totally operational and the model is proving itself, Cybercellar would consider opening up a third hub, possibly in the Far East or Australia. “We’re launching in Europe at the busiest time of year in wine sales, just prior to Christmas, so we’re hoping for a great start for European and UK sales.”