Vinomofo has announced a new partnership with Australia Post, which will see the online wine retailer offering same-day and customisable delivery options to its 500,000-strong membership base by year’s end.
Starting at the end of September, Australia Post will start carrying out standard delivery operations for Vinomofo nationwide, with same-day and customisable delivery services rolling out to customers in metro areas ahead of Christmas.
“The speed of our standard delivery will vastly improve, as will the visibility,” Vinomofo co-founder and joint CEO Andre Eikmeier told Inside Retail Weekly.
“Our ‘mofos’ have had to put up with some pretty average delivery experiences. We felt slightly ashamed of that, to be honest. For a company that prides itself on its customer experience, that was a weak point,” he said.
Vinomofo previously outsourced its warehousing and shipping to Nexday, a logistics provider specialising in wine delivery. But Eikmeier said the company hasn’t moved with the times. Standard delivery was too slow, and customers couldn’t upgrade to express shipping or after-hours delivery.
After securing its own warehouse in Port Melbourne last year, Vinomofo is now able to offer next-day shipping to customers in Melbourne as standard and two-day shipping to customers in Sydney as standard through Australia Post. Customers in other parts of Australia will also have much faster standard shipping times.
In addition, customers in metro areas can opt to pay extra for same-day and customisable delivery, which means they can select the specific day and time of their delivery, including weekends and evenings.
New pricing
Eikmeier said Vinomofo is still hammering out the details on shipping prices. The company previously charged a $9 flat-rate on all orders, but this will change in future, with different prices for customers in metro and regional areas.
According to Eikmeier, customers in metro areas were previously “subsidising” the cost of shipping to rural Australia.
He also said that top-tier loyalty members will have access to free shipping, while other customers will be able to pay an Amazon Prime-like annual fee for a year’s worth of free shipping.
While faster delivery may attract new customers, Eikmeier said that wasn’t the primary reason behind the change.
“I’m more interested in it being a happier experience for the customers we do have,” he said.
With the announcement, Vinomofo has become the latest Australian retailer to revamp its delivery offering ahead of Amazon’s arrival Down Under.
Fast fashion company Showpo has revealed its plan to trial same-day delivery in Sydney and Melbourne and Koala has said it aims to cut its current four-hour delivery time-frame in half to between one and two hours in the same cities.
Meanwhile, Woolworths has recently promised to launch click-and-collect grocery pick-up nationwide by year’s end and Super Retail Group has announced a $50 million investment in online, including delivery.
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