Rebuilding the UK's longest-running fine wine marketplace
Bid for Wine has sold fine wine at auction since 2007. Its rebuild needed to feel like a wine merchant, not a listings site: editorial lot pages, critic scores, live market pricing, and auction mechanics that professional sellers trust. We designed it in the browser, got sign-off on a working prototype, and are building the production platform on our marketplace core.
- Client
- Bid for Wine
- Sector
- Marketplace
- Relationship
- 2026
- Services
- UX and UI design · Interactive prototyping · Marketplace development · Payments architecture · Data migration
Est. 2007
Marketplace heritage
181
Platform routes
30s
Anti-snipe window
5,000
Accounts migrating
01 / the problem
A 19-year-old marketplace that had outgrown its platform.
Thousands of registered bidders, years of auction history and live SEO equity all had to survive the move. The platform had to handle what makes wine auctions genuinely hard: timed lots closing in sequence, snipers waiting for the last second, and payments where trust matters at four-figure lot values.
Design sign-off came first. We built a fully interactive prototype, with a live panel that let the client switch accent colour, typography and card styles in real time, so decisions were made on the real thing rather than static mockups.
- 01 Migrate 5,000 accounts and years of auction history safely
- 02 Design auction mechanics sellers and bidders trust
- 03 Bring critic scores and market pricing into every lot
- 04 Cut payment costs at auction volume
02 / the solution
A wine merchant's front end on a marketplace engine.
The production build runs on our marketplace platform core: 28 packages covering auth, payments, messaging, notifications, search and vendor billing, extended with modules built for this client, including 30-second anti-snipe extensions, a sequential closing cascade, Ryft escrow payments chosen over Stripe to recover fees at volume, and a Value My Wine intake flow feeding valuations into the sale pipeline.
Lot pages pull critic scores from Parker, Robinson and Vinous alongside live market pricing, giving buyers the context a fine wine purchase deserves. Buyers, sellers and the auction team each get a full account area, from saved searches to commission control.
what we delivered
The work behind the result
Signed-off interactive design prototype
Interface and identity work that gives the product its feel.
Timed auctions with anti-snipe logic
The detail work that lifts the product above its spec.
Escrow payments through Ryft
Money moving safely, from checkout through to settlement.
Critic score and market pricing integrations
Money moving safely, from checkout through to settlement.
Wine valuation intake flow
The detail work that lifts the product above its spec.
Buyer, seller and admin account areas
Onboarding and accounts that turn visitors into participants.
SMS and WhatsApp notifications
The detail work that lifts the product above its spec.
Full data and SEO migration plan
The numbers that matter, visible while they can still change decisions.
03 / the result
The auction house, rebuilt for the next twenty years.
The design is approved and the platform is deep in build: 181 routes across a 28-package monorepo, with migration and launch ahead of the 2026 season.
