Cracka Wines founder sells wine trading platform to Dawine

Cracka Wines founder Dean Taylor has sold his new wine trading platform, Wine Depot, to Dawine and been appointed as its new CEO.

Wine Depot will drive Dawine's wine sales strategy in China. The company plans to launch an integrated trading and logistics platform later this year that will allow sellers to source inventory from multiple suppliers and deliver their products directly to the consumer.

It aims to provide end-to-end distribution faster and cheaper than traditional delivery methods, with more choice and the ability to buy by the bottle.

Taylor was the founder of Wine Ark. Cracka Wines is part of The Online Liquor Group, which also owns My Wine Guy and Winegrowers Direct, and merged late last year with Tws Wholesale, owners of The Wine Society.

“We are really excited to work with Dean and acquire Wine Depot, which will provide an integrated trading and logistics platform that the wine industry sorely needs,” said Dawine chairman Piers Lewis.

Dawine has bought 83.3 million shares priced at 0.6c in Wine Depot, making the deal worth just under $500,000.

The acquisition will spearhead China-focussed wine merchant Dawine's plans to expand into the business-to-business wine sector both here in Australia and in China.

Taylor said the old supply chains, dominated by distributors with high-cost warehouses, can’t provider the range of wines people want, the price or the speed of delivery.

“Over the last 10 years there has been an enormous shift in the way that consumers buy wine," he explained. "The online and direct-to-consumer segment is the fastest growing part of the market. 

“Our aim is to provide the wine industry with a ‘smart logistics’ platform that allows sellers to access inventory from thousands of suppliers and drop ship orders directly to consumers from strategically placed ‘depots’.

“Totally agnostic, our ‘depots’ will allow liquor retailers to focus on acquiring, retaining and servicing customers – leveraging our technology to take care of inventory management, fulfillment, customer communications and service.”

The Chinese wine market saw 50% annual growth last year, meaning its now a $1 billion market for Australian wineries.

“China is a logical starting point for the global roll out of our ‘smart logistics’ solution,” Taylor said.

“It’s an emerging market with no legacy wine distribution infrastructure, dominated by just a handful of well-known wine brands. Providing a platform that allows thousands of other Australian and New Zealand wine brands to access and develop a presence in that market is exciting."