Industry Internet Website www.wine-searcher.com Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand | Products Wine Information CEO Martin Brown (1998–) Type of business Web search engine | |
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Founded 1998, London, United Kingdom Profiles | ||
Wine-Searcher is a web search engine enabling users to locate the price and availability of a given wine globally, and be directed to a retail outlet selling the wine. As of July 2016, Wine-Searcher had 8.6 million wine listings from 66,680 outlets globally. The site also includes an encyclopedia of wine regions, grape varieties and wine producers.
Contents
Wine searcher review
History
The company was founded in 1998 by Martin Brown, a former e-commerce manager for London wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd. In 2006, the operation was shifted from London to Auckland, in Brown's native New Zealand. The company now has a staff of roughly 50 employees including software developers, database administrators, account managers and writers.
Products and services
Wine-Searcher collects online wine lists from a range of wine stores, merchants and auction houses. A small team of wine specialists vets the listings, which are uploaded to a database. Merchants can choose to boost their own listings by paying a yearly fee to "sponsor" Wine-Searcher. These listings are available to all users, but for a small fee, an upgrade to Pro Version will return all results.
Apart from its core function as a database, Wine-Searcher also has an encyclopedia which covers 1000 grape varieties and 3500 wine regions. It also provides wine news and features. In 2013, Wine-Searcher released its first mobile app, initially for iPhone and later for Android.
Wine-Searcher's income derives from charging subscriberrs for "pro version" access, charging retailers to share their listings, and advertisements on the web site.
Reviews
Over the years, Wine-Searcher's contribution to online wine business has been recognized by numerous sources. Notable among them are The New York Times, Time, Forbes magazine, Seattle Times, Jancis Robinson, The Journal Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, The Times, "Bloomberg Luxury", Los Angeles Times.