Purpose – The paper aims to document a set of important success factors that need to be considered when undertaking traditional surveys within the Australian wine industry.
Design/methodology/approach – Reflecting on the relatively high rate of survey returns from research conducted within the Australian wineries, the author succinctly identifies a set of industry-based values and operational conditions that appear to directly impact on improving survey response rates. 
Findings – Six success factors should be considered in order to improve winery survey response rates. The factors entail survey design (length, stakeholder engagement, return-by-date), preliminary testing (pilot survey testing) and implementation (survey timing, feedback of results).
Research limitations/implications – As a viewpoint, the article needs to be considered from an Australian context with the proposed factors being a preliminary starting guide for researchers undertaking surveys.
Practical implications – The identified factors associated with improving survey responses are wineindustry specific and will be useful to all researchers conducting surveys in the industry.
Originality/value – The paper is significant in that it identifies a set of wine industry-based values and conditions that appear to influence survey response rates. The paper will be of interest to global wineindustry
researchers that use the survey instrument.