The First Call for Debut Wine Brands Since 2003

Winemakers debut their brands here because they know ACME will introduce them with thoughtfulness and care. Before Offset, sustaining that reputation required a team of 11 and more hours than anyone had.

ACME’s clubs are the backbone of the business. Five clubs, four of them monthly, each with their own shipping preferences, cadence, and customizations. Before Offset, those preferences lived in software notes fields and various spreadsheets. There was no way to automate any of it.

“We had five clubs, but we were actually processing like 25,” Liz says. “We had to do them by hand.” Two weeks to complete a  club cycle, every time.

Order processing had the same problem. A single transaction — walk-in, phone order, or admin entry — took 25 minutes start to finish. Salespeople weren’t selling, they were doing data entry.

Liz led the transition to Offset Commerce, starting with the clubs. The goal was to bring two weeks down to two days. “We brought it down to four hours," she says. Offset's ability to automate preferences by shipping method, cadence, and profile meant the team could process the entire club with one button. All the white glove specifics happen in the background.

Order processing dropped from 25 minutes to under five. Club processing that once required 80 hours of manual work now takes four, a 95% reduction in time.

Offset also built custom integrations with their external fulfillment partner, Sherwin Wine Services — a move the new showroom made necessary. With no room for trucks or stacked cases, fulfillment had to go off-site. The integration means a push of a button sends an order to the warehouse. Liz says. “Before Offset, if a client selected next-day air, it wouldn't ship for a week. Now we can actually do it.”

For years, ACME’s reputation and its digital presence weren’t aligned — the team too buried in order processing to commit time to updates, let alone storytelling.

The Offset Brand Studio built a website centered on Acme’s wine clubs and Emma K. Creative's striking photography, with product pages deep enough to tell the story behind every wine. Offset’s CMS gave Liz's team the ability to make comprehensive updates without an email to the Offset development team.

“The website finally reflects our taste,” Liz says. “It leaves space for storytelling.”

“Because Offset has helped us so much on the computer side, we can focus more of our attention on our clients”, Karen says. “Taking them to lunch when they're in town. Getting on the road and visiting people. Bringing Napa Valley to them.” That kind of outreach can only happen when the back end is solid.

Liz says, “We spend a lot more time telling stories about wine rather than being bogged down in the minutiae of processing orders. We get more time face to face with clients without worrying about the pile at our desk we'd have to return to.”