Thanks for the detailed explanation. I hadn’t considered gifting to the extent that you have, and if the various tax laws and compliance regulations prevent accurate final pricing even with a single screen cart, then the benefit of having one goes out the window.

Your arguments make good sense, and given your extensive research on the subject, your Kung Fu is clearly stronger than mine.

Thanks again. I’m looking forward to talking with Dan on Thursday.

The major issues for carts is false expectations mostly revolving around gifting and mulitple ship to (how can you calculate shipping or if someone can ship to by the first address?) which will be a major component of online wine sales in the next 5 years (gifting that is) and other “calculators” which need to be determined AFTER all the information for the purchase is provided. With the wine industry’s compliance restrictions, varying tax laws (and interpetations of), unusual shipping components, really confuse running carts and do not reflect ACCURATE FINAL pricing until the end thus (again) causing consumer confusion on pricing and customer dissatisfaction. Additionally, most single screen carts do a filtration method BEFORE you have the customers information reducing the ability to capture that potential customer AND distilling your product selection to only what is available in that state. As an example, note the different selections that wine.com presents when choosing a state. From a winery’s point of view, you want ALL products to display in that state, even if they are not available for marketing purposes.

Also if you deter the customer from giving his information by distilling them before they give it to you, you very much eliminate the ability to form some sort of relationship. For example, though you many not ship to UT, you do want to communicate your brand message to UT customers( e.g. f you are at the Sundance Film Film Festival pouring, you want their names to tell them to come and visit). Having them choose their states first, reduces their interest in signing up with you. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the comments and for explaining your position better! I’m very happy that RSS will be an integral part of your architecture. Many cool possibilities there.

I’m curious: what problems single do screen/running total carts create, and how can they deter customers from building a relationship with the winery? That will certainly be a question I’ll be asking Dan when we meet next.

And while I appreciate that Inertia has done years of studies, single screen carts have only just recently been widely deployed, and any research or testing that doesn’t include one really doesn’t provide evidence for or against the things I argue above.

Again, thanks for the comments and I look forward to continuing the conversation.

As to RSS – WE LOVE IT and our whole architecture and next release completely expose your store (if you choose) to the entire internet. We love wineries broadcasting their information to the web in the most efficient and effective ways.

We very much enjoy your wine, and hope you’ll join our REthink family and if you ever have any questions – please feel free to contact me or Dan anytime.

—Paul Mabray – CEO
Inertia – Powering the Wine Revolution