Maturity in the websites of Australian wineries: a study of varying website content

This paper examines the longitudinal development of 86 Australian winery websites over a twoyear period. Wineries, like many Australian businesses have websites that offer a range of facilities for the consumer: information provision, online ordering, and community participation. The 2002 study, when contrasted with a study conducted two years earlier, has unearthed some trends in the development of Australian winery websites. Other features have been introduced to encourage extra visitors to the winery. More wineries offered the chance for customers to purchase their offerings over the Internet. However, this was not generally accomplished by using an interactive sales feature—it was by providing a form to print out and fax to the winery. In general, it appears that there is some maturity developing in the websites of Australian wineries.