Cult Wines

The client

Cult Wines are the market leader in fine wine solutions, providing wine investment and collection management services to a global client base across over 77 countries. They are the winners of the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade.

The Cult Wines website is an essential source of information for wine investors, buyers and sellers. Wine investment guides, price lists and selling information are all viewed via the website which is the keystone of the business revenue and reputation.

The challenge

Cult Wines were looking to capitalise on the rapidly growing demand for fine wine and fine wine investment in Asia. However, to be able to expand into the region, they needed a website which would be equipped for the demands of the Asian market.

They required a new website to be developed catering specifically for the Chinese digital landscape. This presented a challenge, as the process of launching a new website for Chinese internet users requires more hurdles than here in the UK. It is essential to have the correct licensing and hosting solutions for your website so that it meets all the requirements of the Chinese internet regulations. It is also important to localise online content and separate regional data in order to comply with data-regulation laws.

Cult Wines needed an expert partner to be able to assist with the launch of their new Chinese site, who understood the actions that were required and could help to implement them.

The solution

Just After Midnight guided Cult Wines through the process of launching their new Chinese website. From registering the business in China, to selecting a host, to setting up the licensing, JAM offered support on every step of the process so that Cult Wines could launch their digital assets onto the Chinese online marketplace.

We partnered with hosting partner Alibaba Cloud to help Cult Wines to expand into China. Using Alibaba products, we investigated and implemented at a strategy for connectivity into and out of China. We also developed a platform to separate personal data across two markets, China and Europe, and helped to deploy the website code for Cult Wines in China, using an ICP filing.

Underpinning the managed hosting is our 24/7 infrastructure support, which protects the Cult Wines UK, China, Singapore and Hong Kong sites around the clock, across both European and Asian timezones.

Results

The Cult Wines sites have been performing in Asia since November 2019. Since then:

• We have provided ongoing support to the Asian and UK sites, constantly evolving and optimising our support solutions to offer the best digital experiences to Cult Wines customers in both markets
• All customer data is protected using regionally specific systems
• Our unique 24/7 infrastructure support has guaranteed the sites are secure and stable across both markets