Virginia Wine Distribution Company Pours Modern Design into Online Application

A fully redesigned online application has been created for the Virginia Wine Distribution Company (VWDC) that brings modern design features to the consumer. The application serves up a world class experience to users through improved design, visual appeal, user experience, and maintainability. The new application was built by e-government specialists Virginia Interactive (VI) to feature a wholesale migration of the VWDC online application to a VI hosted environment, as well as an overhaul of its features and technology.

VWDC is a non-profit, non-inventory corporation, created by the Commonwealth of Virginia to provide wholesale distribution services for Virginia farm wineries, cideries, and meaderies. Small farm wineries had previously been exempt from the Commonwealth's distribution system of producers, distributors, and retailers. Legislation passed in 2006 brought them under the traditional distribution system. VWDC was created in 2007 to ameliorate negative impact on smaller producers by allowing distribution of up to 3,000 cases of their own wine through the VWDC.

The revised VWDC online application has flexibility and specific functionality to match the specific needs of a specialized organization. To stay abreast of new regulations, individual wineries have a revised ability to set discounts. The application now has capacity for orders of multiple types of wine and allows for infinite order size. A simplified process for updating the retailers' VABC license status allows for an automated approach.

A smoother invoice creation system, more control over the modification of an existing invoice, and the addition of batch invoice capability is coupled to an ordering process that allows for a shopping cart, digital signature, and time stamps. Buyers also have the capability of signing for their deliveries on mobile devices through the use of digital signature technology, thus eliminating the need for traditional paper invoices.

In order to create a consistent user experience, the look and feel of the application has been updated to remain consistent with a public-facing website redesign that was completed in 2017.

To provide a consistent user experience between devices, the new website leverages responsive design, as opposed to adaptive design. Mobile breakpoints allow for the rendering of content consistently across all desktop, tablet, and smartphone devices; as well as screen sizes, operating systems, and browsers.

The new application has been crafted by Virginia Interactive to leverage styles as effectively as possible by taking advantage of whitespace, proximity, color, and size to improve legibility and draw users' eyes to important content and calls-to-action.

"VWDC is pleased to roll out new efficiencies on the company website. We look forward to the positive impact it will have on business and the business of our partner wineries, cideries, and meaderies. Virginia Interactive has been creative and thoughtful in developing a custom application for our unique business," said Robin Hill, Operations Manager for VWDC.

The online application for Virginia Wine Distribution Company launched on July 10th, 2018.