/PRNewswire/ -- Wine.com, the nation's leading online wine retailer, hosted its eighth annual Industry Growth Summit last Wednesday, where it highlighted the role Three-Tier Ecommerce can play in driving wine industry growth, and issued a call for increased collaboration with its trade partners.  Hosted on the campus of Sonoma State University, home to the Wine Business Institute, the global Leader in Wine Business Education and Research, attendees included nearly 350 industry executives representing Wine.com suppliers and wholesalers.

Three-Tier Ecommerce is the model Wine.com has used to reach annual revenue over $100 million, growing over 20% in the last 12 months, with revenue from mobile phones growing over 70%.  The company sold 35,000 different wines in the last year, from 5,000 wineries – relying on over 200 wholesalers to provide selection breadth and inventory depth.  To distinguish its model from the Winery Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) model, which excludes wholesaler participation, the company has coined the term Three-Tier Ecommerce or "3TE."

"The only way to get our industry growing at a healthier clip again is to do a better job engaging customers, at scale," said Rich Bergsund, Wine.com CEO.  "3TE can reach large audiences with deep storytelling content, recommendation technology and live chat service to help customers make new discoveries, with confidence."

Presentations from Wine.com executives emphasized working together to find solutions to customer pain points, including the need for ever-expanding "long tail" selection, more convenient delivery options and eliminating the regulatory barriers to retail free trade across state borders.

"Limiting the market size of your own customers is not a recipe for growth," said Michael Osborn, Wine.com Founder and VP Merchandising, referring to long-held wholesaler policies that have restricted cross-border trade by retailers.  "It's time to tear down trade barriers and trust our industry's retailers to do our job finding customers for your wine – online and off.  3TE can become an industry bright spot -- just like Winery DTC, but with wholesaler involvement.