REthink Wine Blog

Finally, after months and months of work (a labor of love), we have released rethinkcompliance.com out of beta and free to all US wineries. We are committed to improving this tool over the next six months with three major releases (some of which are things the wine industry have never before seen in a compliance tool). I am very thankful to our investors, our board, our team, and all winery supporters for this initiative. It make Inertia feel good to give back to the industry in order to help wineries sell more direct. The press release is below:

Free Access to Inertia’s “REthink Compliance Tool'’ Aims to Increase Direct-To-Consumer Wine Sales

NAPA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Inertia Beverage Group announced today that it has opened its REthink Compliance™ tool for use free of charge to any winery, fulfillment house or compliance company. Access to Inertia’s REthink Compliance tool comes without qualification and does not require use or subscription to Inertia’s direct shipping platform.

Wineries, fulfillment houses, compliance firms and point-of-sale service providers can register and use the Inertia REthink Compliance tool at: http://www.rethinkcompliance.com.

SYSTEM GENERATES STATE REPORTS, COMPLIANCE STATUS AND HOSTS LISTS OF STATE LAWS

Inertia spent nearly two years, over half a million dollars and more than 6,000 man-hours creating the REthink Compliance tool. The new service allows wineries to automatically check that their wine shipments are in compliance with shipping regulations in fifty states and generates the reports which states require direct shippers to file based on their sales into the state. In addition, the new REthink Compliance tool provides a detailed matrix of the myriad of rules and regulations for all fifty states concerning direct-to-consumer shipments.

“We’ve opened the REthink Compliance tool to all parties because it’s clear that the winery-to-consumer sales channel is going to flourish only when wineries have an affordable and simple way to comply with the multitude of complex and confusing wine shipping regulations and requirements that exist across the country,” said Inertia CEO Paul Mabray. “This new compliance tool, being available free to all who want to use it, is our response to the compliance burdens that have kept many a winery from accessing the national direct-to-consumer market.”

REDUCING COMPLIANCE BURDENS & EXPENSES HELP EXPAND SALES AND CONSUMER ACCESS TO WINE

The simple process of using the REThink Compliance tool amounts to uploading wine order information, in the form of an excel .csv file, into the web service-based REthink Compliance tool. Most shopping cart and direct sales platforms available to wineries have a simple “export sales” command that allows creation of the necessary file. The REthink Compliance tool will then inform the winery where they are out of compliance with rules based on total amounts of wine shipped into a state or to an individual. The tool will also indicate which state reports are necessary, and completely format and fill in the necessary reports if requested.

Inertia has committed staffing and resources to continue to evolve and enhance the feature set for REthink Compliance. Over the next six months, they will have three releases to enhance the tool with new features such as additional file upload formats, web-services integration with key partners, a step-by-step permit application process wizard and a compliance status map for easy determination of compliance standing.

“Our goal here is a simple one: to increase the size of the direct-to-consumer wine market by giving wineries the means to efficiently access more markets,” said Mabray. “This in turn will bring more consumers in to the direct wine market as more wineries choose to ship to more states and do so with the confidence that they are in compliance with the states’ rules and regulations.”

To ensure accuracy and continued updates of the system, Inertia dedicates two full time compliance experts, including a compliance lawyer, to the task of monitoring changes and additions to state regulations across the country. In addition, Inertia has created its “Inertia Compliance Council,” a group of industry compliance and legal experts who meet on a regular basis to discuss the state of wine shipping rules and regulations.

This entry was posted by Paul Mabray on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 10:53 am and is filed under Compliance, Inertia Buzz, Inertia Products and Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.