Purchase Allocated Wines
Written by Edi Sipkas
Updated at June 19th, 2025
Table of Contents
Allocated wines are not purchased in the same manner as other wines on your store pages. They can be displayed with other wines in the store using the Display Product. Show the Message option on the General section of the product (please click here for more info). Read the following text to learn how to purchase an allocated wine/product.
Allocations Page
To purchase a wine (whether they display on the store pages or not), a customer will have to log in to the website. If a customer doesn't have a login account, they must create one.
Once a customer has logged into the website, they must navigate to the Allocation page in their member profile. This page will display all the allocations a person is a part of. If a customer does not belong to any allocations, they will see red text on this page, "You currently have no wine allocations."
Each wine allocation will display the following information:
| Allocation Name | Name of the Allocation. This will only display the public Allocation name (not the internal name). |
|---|---|
| End Date | The last day that the Allocation can be purchased. Allocations will end at 11:59 PM PST on the end date set. |
| Ship Date | This is an optional field when setting up the Allocation. This date is simply there to give your customers an estimated ship date; this does not affect any features on the admin panel. |
| Product(s) in the Allocation | This will display a smaller image than your store pages and your teaser. |
| Minimum Order Qty | This is the minimum a customer has to select per order. |
| Your Total Allocation | This is the total number of bottles allocated to the customer. This is the Maximum amount that a customer can purchase. |
| Order Amount | This is where a person will select the number of bottles they wish to purchase in one order. This number automatically defaults to the default amount setup in the Admin Panel. |
| Request Amount | This allows a customer to request additional bottles for their Allocation. These requests will populate the Wish List tab of the allocations. Learn More about the Wish List. The customer must purchase at least one bottle to request additional bottles. |
Unlike the regular wine pages (1-Up, 2-Up, etc.), this allocation page does not link to the product detail page. Allocated wine cannot be purchased from the product detail page, so we removed the ability to send them to this page from the allocations page (removed from the product image and product title).
Adding Products to the Shopping Cart
To Purchase a wine, a customer must type in how many bottles they wish to order, then click the Add Allocation to Cart. This will automatically take customers to the Cart page, where they can select their state and continue on Billing and Shipping. Allocation orders are the same as normal website orders; the only difference is how they are purchased.
Allocation Wish List
Customers who wish to purchase more quantities of the allocated products can request more via their allocation page. Their wish list will appear in the shopping cart, billing & shipping page; review your order page, receipt, and admin panel order. For further information, please visit the Allocation Wish List Documentation.
Admin Panel Orders
Admin users can place orders for customers Orders section of the admin panel. The normal system functionality limits allocated wines only to members of the specific Allocation that the wine is assigned to. This means that, normally, when an admin is trying to order an allocated wine, the billing customer must be a member of the wine allocation.
If a customer is not part of the Allocation, you will receive the following message:
"ERROR ADDING PRODUCT SKU: SKU NAME TO CART. PRODUCT SKU IS AN ALLOCATED SKU, AND YOU CURRENTLY HAVE NO ALLOCATION OR MUST LOG IN TO ACCESS THIS PRODUCT."
This normal function can be overridden to allow admin users to place allocated wine orders for customers who do not belong to the wine allocation. With this option, an admin can create an order with allocated products for non-allocation members and will not receive an error message.
The order will be treated as normal, so it will not appear in any allocation reports. The non-allocated customer will not be added to the Allocation for website purchases; it is just a one-time order. For more information or if you would like to activate this feature, please get in touch with WineDirect at support@winedirect.com.