5 Signs Your Winery Website is Costing You Sales (And How to Fix It)
Your tasting room staff would never ignore a customer standing in front of them, wallet in hand. Yet your website does exactly that to potential buyers every day.
In 2025, your website isn't just a digital brochure. It's your hardest-working salesperson, open 24/7, responsible for converting casual browsers into buyers and club members. When it fails at this job, you lose revenue that's rightfully yours.
The numbers are sobering: According to Silicon Valley Bank's 2025 DTC report, wineries with optimized websites generate 42% more direct online revenue than those with outdated sites. In an industry where tasting room visits continue their post-pandemic decline, your website's performance directly impacts your bottom line.
Let's examine the five most common website issues driving potential customers away from your digital doorstep, and exactly how to fix each one.
Sign #1: Your Website Isn't Mobile-Friendly
Why This Kills Sales
The reality: 67% of wine e-commerce browsing now happens on mobile devices. Yet many winery websites remain designed primarily for desktop viewing, creating a frustrating experience for the majority of visitors.
Booking a tasting, browsing wines, or joining a club becomes an exercise in patience rather than pleasure when pinching, zooming, and squinting are required. Every friction point creates another opportunity for potential customers to give up and go elsewhere.
What To Look For
Your website has a mobile problem if:
Text is too small to read without zooming
Buttons and navigation are difficult to tap accurately
Images don't resize properly for smaller screens
Forms are cumbersome to complete on a phone
Load times exceed 3 seconds on mobile networks
The Amazon Principle That Wineries Should Adopt
Amazon obsessively designs for "thumb reach" on mobile devices, ensuring that primary navigation and action buttons are within natural thumb extension on phone screens. This single focus has contributed billions(!) in additional mobile revenue.
For wineries, this means placing your "Shop Wines," "Book a Tasting," and "Join Club" buttons within easy reach on mobile screens, not buried in hamburger menus or pushed to screen edges.
How to Fix It
Implement truly responsive design: Don't settle for a website that merely "works" on mobile. Insist on one specifically optimized for mobile users with touch-friendly navigation.
Prioritize mobile load speed: Mobile users abandon sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Compress images, minimize code, and test on actual mobile networks.
Simplify the mobile checkout: Reduce form fields to the absolute minimum, enable autofill, and offer digital wallet payment options like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Test on actual devices: Don't rely on browser emulators. Test your site on actual phones and tablets across different screen sizes and operating systems.
Discover how a mobile-friendly website is essential for your winery's online sales
Sign #2: Your Online Store is Difficult to Navigate
Why This Kills Sales
When customers can't quickly find what they're looking for, they leave. It's that simple.
The typical winery website organizes wines in ways that make sense to the winemaker (by vineyard block, barrel selection, or vintage) rather than how customers naturally shop (by wine type, price point, or occasion).
This creates cognitive load that drives away casual browsers who might otherwise convert into customers.
What To Look For
Your navigation is failing if:
Finding a specific wine requires more than 2-3 clicks
Wine collections lack clear organization or logical grouping
Search functionality is absent or ineffective
Filter options are missing or limited
Product pages don't suggest related wines
The Sephora Strategy Wineries Should Borrow
Beauty retailer Sephora excels at intuitive navigation by allowing shoppers to browse products in multiple ways simultaneously: by category, concern, ingredient, or collection. This flexibility accommodates different shopping styles and intentions.
For wineries, this means enabling visitors to browse wines by varietal, price point, occasion, food pairing, or accolades, rather than forcing them into a single navigation path.
How to Fix It
Implement intuitive wine categorization: Organize your shop with clear categories (Red, White, Rosé, Sparkling) and then subcategories by varietal, collection, or price.
Add robust filtering options: Allow visitors to filter by price range, vintage, wine style, and availability.
Incorporate search functionality: A prominent search bar with predictive text helps visitors find specific wines instantly.
Include recommended pairings: Display "You might also like" suggestions on product pages to encourage discovery and increase order value.
Create guided shopping experiences: Add collections like "Perfect for Summer," "Gift Ideas," or "Winemaker Favorites" to help undecided shoppers.
Sign #3: Your Website Loads Too Slowly
Why This Kills Sales
Page speed isn't just a technical issue, it's a revenue issue. Every additional second of load time decreases conversions by 7%.
While you might tolerate your website's slowness because you've grown accustomed to it, new visitors make snap judgments. A slow-loading page signals unprofessionalism and creates doubt about your overall attention to detail, including your winemaking.
What To Look For
Your website has speed problems if:
Full page load takes more than 2-3 seconds
Images appear gradually rather than promptly
Interactive elements (like carousels) lag when activated
Scrolling isn't smooth and responsive
Adding items to cart produces noticeable delays
The Financial Times Insight That Applies to Wine
The Financial Times discovered that even a one-second improvement in page load time increased engagement by 5% and subscription conversions by 2%. Their data showed that speed wasn't just about user experience, it directly impacted revenue.
For wineries, this means speed optimizations should be viewed as revenue investments, not technical expenses.
How to Fix It
Optimize image sizes: Compress and properly size all images, particularly bottle shots and vineyard photos which often arrive from photographers at unnecessarily large sizes.
Upgrade your hosting: Budget hosting plans often place multiple websites on shared servers, creating traffic bottlenecks. Invest in dedicated hosting or managed WordPress hosting optimized for e-commerce.
Minimize plugin usage: Each plugin adds code that must load. Audit your plugins and remove any that aren't essential for business operations.
Implement caching: Browser caching stores commonly used files locally on visitors' devices, dramatically improving load times for return visitors.
Sign #4: Your Checkout Process is Clunky
Why This Kills Sales
The checkout process is where sales go to die. On average, 70% of e-commerce carts are abandoned before completion, and complicated checkout processes are the leading cause.
Every additional step, form field, or moment of confusion during checkout increases the likelihood that the sale will evaporate. This is particularly true for wine purchases, where shipping regulations already add unavoidable complexity.
What To Look For
Your checkout is problematic if:
Completing a purchase requires more than 3 steps
Customers must create an account to make a purchase
Shipping and billing information must be entered separately
Shipping costs are revealed only at the final step
Error messages are vague or unhelpful
Payment options are limited
The Insight from Domino's Pizza That Wineries Should Apply
Domino's Pizza revolutionized their online ordering by implementing a pizza tracker that shows exactly where the order stands in the preparation and delivery process. This transparency reduced order abandonment by 28%.
For wineries, providing clear indication of checkout progress (Step 2 of 3), estimated shipping dates, and confirmation details creates similar confidence that keeps customers moving toward purchase completion.
How to Fix It
Enable guest checkout: Always allow purchases without account creation. You can offer account registration after the purchase is complete.
Reduce form fields to the minimum: Ask only for information that's absolutely necessary to complete the transaction.
Auto-populate information when possible: Use browser autofill capabilities and duplicate billing/shipping information with a single checkbox.
Display shipping costs early: Show estimated shipping on product pages or in the cart before checkout begins.
Offer multiple payment options: Beyond credit cards, include Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and other digital wallets to accommodate preferences.
Implement address verification: Use real-time address validation to prevent errors and ensure alcohol can be delivered to the destination.
Learn more about optimizing your winery's user experience to increase sales
Sign #5: Your Website Doesn't Tell Your Brand Story
Why This Kills Sales
Wine is not a commodity purchase. It's an experience, a story, a connection to place and people. When your website fails to convey your unique story, you're competing solely on price and convenience, a battle that small to mid-sized wineries will lose against larger players.
The most successful DTC wine brands don't just sell bottles, they sell belonging. Your story transforms transactional customers into loyal advocates who choose your wines because they feel connected to your journey, values, and vision.
What To Look For
Your brand storytelling needs work if:
Your "About Us" page could describe almost any winery
Product descriptions focus solely on technical information
Vineyard and winery imagery is generic or stock photography
Your founder's or winemaker's personality is absent
There's no clear articulation of what makes your wines unique
The Patagonia Principle That Works for Wine
Outdoor retailer Patagonia doesn't sell jackets, they sell environmental stewardship and adventure. Their product pages contain as much storytelling about material sourcing and environmental impact as they do about product features.
For wineries, this means sharing not just what's in the bottle, but why it matters, who made it, and the philosophy behind each decision, creating emotional investment that justifies premium pricing.
How to Fix It
Create an authentic brand narrative: Develop a clear, compelling story that explains why your winery exists and what makes your approach unique.
Humanize your brand: Feature the real people behind your wines with authentic photography and personal anecdotes.
Show your process: Use imagery and content that reveals your winemaking approach, from vineyard to bottle.
Connect wines to stories: Link each wine to a specific story about its creation, inspiration, or ideal enjoyment scenario.
Use consistent voice and visuals: Ensure all content reflects your brand's unique personality, whether rustic and traditional or modern and innovative.
Bonus Tip: Integrate Your Wine Club, Seamlessly
The most profitable winery websites treat their wine clubs as integral to the shopping experience, not as an afterthought. Your club shouldn't be buried in navigation or treated as separate from your e-commerce operation.
What Great Wine Club Integration Looks Like
Prominent positioning: Feature club options on your homepage and throughout the shopping experience.
Clear value proposition: Explicitly state what members receive beyond discounted wine (early access, exclusive wines, events, etc.).
Simplified sign-up: Enable one-click club joins from product pages when customers show interest in specific wines.
Transparent terms: Clearly explain commitment, shipping frequency, and cancellation policies to build trust.
Member recognition: If someone is already a club member, acknowledge this status throughout their shopping experience and apply appropriate benefits automatically.
Discover strategies to prevent wine club fatigue and retain more members
Your Website: Vanity Project or Sales Machine?
Unfortunately, many winery websites are designed to please the winery owner, not to convert customers. They showcase what the winery is proud of rather than addressing what customers need to make purchasing decisions.
The wineries seeing the strongest digital growth have shifted this mindset. They've recognized that their website isn't a vanity project or digital brochure, but a sales tool that should be measured, optimized, and treated as their most important distribution channel.
The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in a high-converting website. It's whether you can afford not to when tasting room traffic continues to decline and online competition intensifies every year.
The wineries that invest in customer-focused website experiences today will build stronger, more profitable direct-to-consumer channels tomorrow. The only question is whether you'll be one of them.
Ready for a complete website overhaul? Learn more about our custom winery website design services.