CALGARY, ALBERTA — (Marketwired) — 07/08/13 — BlackSquare Inc., maker of market-leading wine ecommerce application Blackboxx, announced a milestone collaboration with a major newspaper in Asia.
Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. (SCMP) collaborated with BlackSquare to create Wine Circle, a dedicated English language ecommerce site for wine lovers. The site recently launched at
Wine Circle is the world-s first cloud-hosted wine store operated by a leading newspaper and is powered by Blackboxx, a software as a service (SaaS) platform built specifically for direct to consumer wine ecommerce.
The South China Morning Post is Hong Kong-s most trusted and widely read English language newspaper, delivering regional news of Hong Kong, China and Asia to local and international audiences.
According to BlackSquare-s CEO, Matthew Protti, “What-s unique is that SCMP is the first major newspaper to adopt cloud-hosted ecommerce. We-re excited that Blackboxx was chosen to help SCMP deploy their wine related digital assets and products to readers. It further demonstrates the enterprise level movement to cloud hosting for wine ecommerce that-s happening globally.”
Newspaper based wine clubs have a long, successful history. With Wine Circle, SCMP now joins the ranks of such newspapers as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Daily Telegraph.
Wine Circle is operated by SCMP-s strategic marketing group in partnership with Kerry Wines Ltd., a premium wine distributor to Hong Kong and Greater China consumers. SCMP will support Wine Circle-s marketing with newspaper inserts, editorial and wine events for members.
“SCMP readers are often wine enthusiasts,” said SCMP-s director of marketing, Anne Wong. “Wine Circle combines interesting wine articles and reviews from columnists, wine critics and independent bloggers with the opportunity to buy excellent wines at exceptional prices. We also offer special wine events to Wine Circle members, providing SCMP wine lovers a -one-stop shop- local website.”
“We applied our international wine ecommerce experience to guide SCMP in developing this new line of business” said Protti. “With our local partner, Actel Consulting, we worked closely with SCMP-s marketing group to put them on the cutting edge of monetizing their digital assets.”
About the South China Morning Post
Based in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post is the flagship publication of SCMP Group Ltd. (SEHK: 583), a leading newspaper and magazine publisher in Asia. First published in 1903, the South China Morning Post is Hong Kong-s world-renowned English-language newspaper and draws the city-s most affluent, influential readership.
SCMP has developed a solid reputation for authoritative, influential and independent reporting on Hong Kong, China and the rest of Asia. In print and across multiple digital platforms, the South China Morning Post reaches a global audience, and won 64 international awards in 2012 for editorial, marketing and technical excellence. ()
About BlackSquare Inc.
Based in Canada, BlackSquare is powering an ecommerce revolution for the global wine and spirits industry. BlackSquare combines deep wine industry expertise with advanced cloud-based technology to produce Blackboxx, the most powerful ecommerce platform available, used by global wineries, wine clubs and distributors in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. (blacksquare.ca) ()
Contacts:
Matthew Protti, CEO
GMT – 7 H
BlackSquare – Head Office
+403.648.9094
Claude Achcar, Actel Consulting
GMT + 8 H
BlackSquare – Hong Kong agent
+852 3975 2999
Bessy Chan, South China Morning Post
GMT + 8 H
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