The pages a liquor store website needs

Hours and the holiday week come first

Most visits to a bottle shop site are a quick check before a drive. The visitor wants to know whether the door is open right now and whether tonight is a holiday. Put hours at the top of the home page, as text, never only inside an image.

The days around a big holiday are when hours change most and when a wrong answer costs the most. Keep a page you can edit in a minute, as our guide to a seasonal hours page describes, and say exactly which days change.

Add the street, where to park and which door to use. Many shops sit in a plaza, and one line about the side entrance saves a customer a lap around the lot.

Staff who answer the phone should read from the same page. If the site says one thing and the person at the counter says another, the shopper trusts neither, so treat the page as the single source and ask staff to check it when they are unsure.

Category pages answer the do-you-carry question

People arrive with a specific want: a style of wine, a type of whiskey, a local brewery, something for a dinner. Give each category you go deep on its own page, written the way you would answer at the counter, with what the shelf holds and where a newcomer might start.

Do not publish a catalog you cannot keep current. Stock moves daily, so write about the character of the shelf and tell visitors to ask whether a particular bottle is in. Then give them a form or a phone number to ask with.

Add a line about special requests to each category page. A shopper who learns you can often track down a bottle you do not keep on the shelf is more likely to ask, and that question is where a good regular customer begins.

Delivery and pickup wording needs a careful hand

Rules about who may deliver, to whom, and what must be checked at the door differ by place. Say only what your shop does, in plain words, such as which areas you cover or whether you work through a delivery service. Owners should check their own licensing rules first, and this page is not legal advice.

A site built here has no online store checkout, so the page should say how an order actually happens: by phone, by a form, or by walking in. Our guide to building a whole bottle shop site covers the rest of the structure.

Update the wording whenever your practice changes, and never describe a service you stopped offering. A delivery page that promises something the shop no longer does is the kind of small error that costs a repeat customer.

Events and tastings that never go stale

A tasting page does its job only while the date is ahead of today. Give each event its own entry with the day, the start time, whether to reserve, and what a visitor should expect to pay. Our page on the event page for a business shows the shape.

Then set a habit: when the event passes, the entry goes. A page advertising last season is worse than no page, because it tells a visitor nobody is looking after the place.

What to leave off the site

Leave off anything that sounds like advice about drinking or a claim about health. Leave off scarcity language you cannot back up, and any promise that a bottle will be in stock tomorrow.

Leave off giveaways and contests unless you have checked the rules that apply to you. A calm, factual site reads as a shop that knows its job, which is the impression a careful buyer wants.

The seasonal rushes and the gift buyer

A bottle shop has a calendar of its own: the weeks of holiday gatherings, the summer weekends, the run-up to wedding season, and the quiet stretch after. Each pulls in a different shopper with a different question, and a page that expects them is worth building ahead of time.

A gift page speaks to the buyer who knows nothing about the recipient. Describe the kinds of gifts you can put together, how to ask for one, and how much notice you need. Keep it about the choice of gift and never about the effects of drinking.

Update the top of the home page when a season turns. One line, such as a holiday ordering note or a reminder of changed hours, tells regular visitors that someone is minding the shop.

Mistakes that send shoppers elsewhere

These are the problems that show up again and again on bottle shop sites. Most are small, and every one is fixable in a single sitting once you know to look.

The in-app assistant can write any of these pages from a conversation about your shop, and a page that fails a must-pass check does not go live. Write each one for the person standing in the aisle.

• Hours that differ between the site and the map listing
• A stock list that was accurate once and never touched again
• Delivery wording copied from another store's local rules
• A tasting page still advertising an event that has passed
• Photos of bottles with no words about why they are there
• No way to ask for a case or a hard-to-find bottle