How Wine Passions drove user engagement with content marketing

To reach more customers online, Richard Chiu and his team decided to transfer their online store onto Shopify. Paying homage to the spirit of la dolce vita (the sweet life) in its glamorous entirety, they designed a store that offers a feast for the senses, all using GemPages.

When the passion runs deep

With solid business acumen and an exclusive supply of more than 300 fine wines from over 30 leading wineries in Italy, Wine Passions has made its mark as a significant player in Hong Kong and China's imported wine industries.

True to its name, the company keeps the passion flowing throughout the process of sourcing, transportation, and storage management.

From having a procurement center in Italy, requiring all wineries to ensure perfect product quality, to using incubators to preserve the wine's delicate flavors–Their meticulous attention to detail, without a doubt, sets a very high bar for all distributors.

Wine Passions' marketing team

Brewing up the best content

And yet passion can come in different forms. For Wine Passions, it not only translates into the way they treat their wine but also takes shape in their words. Their dedication to promoting Italian wine culture shows. Since 2009, they have consistently published comprehensive content about Italian wine on their website.

Updating that content is key to driving user engagement, says Richard Chiu, Wine Passions' Marketing Manager.

Wine drinking culture and the number of wine enthusiasts are on the rise in Hong Kong and Greater China and they are thirsty for good quality content, he says.

"Even though many are not necessarily buying our wine, they are spending quite an amount of time on our website reading a lot of information and content."

On top of that, as other wine importers do not take the constant update of content seriously, this gives them an edge over their competition.

"I can see that a lot of wine websites in Hong Kong are not regularly updated content-wise," he says.

"And we can say that our website, in Hong Kong, is the most informative. I think a lot of people, when they look for Italian wines or specific Italian wine content, they are very willing to access our website because it's beautiful and responsive."

"Using Shopify and GemPages really helps our products be known and accessible through Google."

More and more people are engaging with their website, which has been converting into higher affiliate registrations.

However, Richard says, it did not work that smoothly before. Back in 2018, Wine Passions' website was still "very sluggish, very slow, and not responsive".

No whine, just wine

It was not until 2020 that the team finally decided to migrate to Shopify and give their website a complete makeover from the inside out.

They wanted to put their content center stage and create a website as information-rich, yet visually pleasing, as possible. After dabbling in a handful of page builders, they settled on GemPages for its impressive convenience in managing the website.

Richard says his content team updates the content right on their phones as they please. This renders the whole publishing and editing process a lot more efficient.

And a massive amount of content needs proper organization. The team used GemPages to build multiple pages on their website to categorize their information. This makes it possible for visitors to find what they want in an instant.

A variety of pages and drop-down menus for easy navigation

As to the layout, inspired by GemPages' extensive library of elements and templates, Richard and his team deliver their content in an easy-to-digest fashion.

Furthermore, the responsive design makes sure the content looks on point across all devices. This matches the team's initial desire to make their website user-friendly.

This new website comes from a very collaborative place. The whole team has made contributions to keep it alive and informative, Richard says.

The future looks Rosé

On entering the fierce eCommerce world, it is imperative to rise above the noise to be able to thrive for years to come. By creating a professional-looking and credible website, Wine Passions has gotten off to a great start.

"Two or three years ago, we still had no online presence and just sold our wines through salespeople or events,” Richard says.

“We only started selling online the last two or three years, and I think the website has really been helping us."

For 2022, Wine Passions will still opt for GemPages as their designated page builder and they are looking forward to all the exciting opportunities ahead.