Amazon is to starting selling wine from its site to US customers.
According to FT.com, Amazon is currently looking to recruit a senior wine buyer who will be responsible for “the acquisition of a massive new product selection.”
Online alcohol sales have been a difficult market in the United States due to the multitude of laws in relation to online alcohol sales in different states. The market though is somewhat easier to enter today than during the first web boom, with the US Supreme Court having ruled that state governments may not prohibit residents from ordering directly from out-of-state wineries in 2005.
Amazon invested $30 million into Wineshopper.com in 1999. The site lasted one year. Sales of wine in the United States totaled $30 billion in 2007.
kids + credit cards = mess
kid + credit cards…how come parents?
Chris might be right, but I still think it’s a good thing – wine enthusiast will be able to purchase wines that they might not have had access to before.
wine.woot.com seems to have been going for a while… although I doubt this will be as interesting.
The immediate concern is, how to verify identification online? If the wine buyer is a teenager but declares he is an adult, how do you know that since you can not see him? Maybe every wine buyer needs to scan and upload a photo ID?
Is it kosher?
Buying alcohol is nothing new on the internet. Amazon will just have to perform similar checks.
I think this is a smart move, a lot of people want to buy wines at discount rates. Hopefully amazon will add some fierce competition to this market
If a kid gets hold of pops credit card, he could just as easily snatch his DL . This is gonna take a phone verification of the online buyers to work safely.
Amazon would make a great case study at any business school. It seems to be an original forward-thinking company.
nice complimentary – book buyers also buying wine…what a nice, sensual experience
to me “wine business” implies they’re making or branding wine. this is just distribution, right?
pffft – Opening up a massive wine selling operation is about as “wine business” as it gets. Sounds like you are in the whine business. Does it pay well?
Duncan, the Supreme court ruling does not make it any easier for Amazon. They are not a winery and have to follow retail rules. This is much more complicated and subject to state laws, and it was not changed by the court ruling.
Wine.com I know has invested substantially in warehouses in many states so that they are able to abide by many of these state laws and ship effectively in-state. It will be interesting to see if Amazon does the same thing.
Wine ‘n’ Dine… plans for e-restaurant? lol! Could turn to reality as well!!
It looks like we (WineLog.net) will have a new source of wine data and affiliate links.
More importantly though… Organizing and selling wine online has been tough due to the fact that there is no standard identification number (like UPCs for CDs and Videos or ISBNs for books). Having a big player like Amazon in the mix should help get something like that going.
Wow, so many comments already include hysteria about underage drinkers.
Young people have access to alcohol without ordering a bottle of Cabernet from Amazon. And who cares if they do get alcohol? What magically happens at 21 that makes them responsible? Why can an 18 yo die in Iraq but not buy a beer? Why can’t parents teach responsible consumption? Why why why can’t I buy a bottle of wine before noon on Sunday in Texas!?!??!! Ridiculous!
Any word on fine cheese too?
Great! Not only another way to get alcohol, but another reason not to leave the house. But who wants to wait seven business days for alcohol? Not me!
I am very embarrassed that I even read the comments section for this post.
While I recognize the problem of your people drinking, I think it is perpetuated by a puritan attitude. Having been born and lived in other countries I saw a lot less alcohol abuse by teenagers outside the US. I do not encourage my kids to drink, but I rather them learn to drink under my supervision and teach them to recognize how and when to say “enough”. To that effect, if they ask for a taste, I oblige without making ANY deal.
Now … there are plenty of online stores where I get wine from. So, one more, what matters does it make? However, imagine the access that masses get by Amazon providing the service. On the other hand, it will make it harder for me to get my cases since there will be more demand. The question really is, what does this does to the wine economy and its consumers?
what kind of wine they are sell on the net?
On-line wine sales are popular in Australia and have been so for several years and other countries for that matter. This is a ‘no-brainer’ in terms of enough consumers.
Anti-drinking attitudes on this forum are a bit puzzling. Easier to understand why prohibition occured in the US I guess…..
No kid is going to spend $$$ and wait for a bottle of wine when to get a buzz, when they can easily get beer and booze from, like, 100 other places closer (and cheaper). And if a kid has the good taste to order a fine bottle of Cabernet, he/she’s probably mature enough to drink it. People are stupid on this issue.
I’m sure the under-age issue won’t be a problem. I’m guessing they know a lot more about you than just your age when you log in to their site.
Duncan, the Supreme court ruling does not make it any easier for Amazon. *))) I love sport… and i want to find a man who love sport too online. If you are alone, free to view me at blackwhitekiss . com ))&&*))
Too bad it’s already obsolete
awesome…wine.com and its breathren stink! they havent invested anything into a better experience in years and amazon should go eat their lunch. go amazon!
Wine is over-rated and extremely wasteful to produce, bottle and transport.
Not a very earth-friendly product…
Zoli – thank you for that – made my day.
another great reason why i’ll always have a job i enjoy. good luck amazon.
@ Zoli
I’m not sure how you can compare selling wine to selling software. You can get software without the bulky packaging, but until they develop a real elaborate set of tubes, I don’t think I’ll be getting wine without some sort of packaging and bulk… the more bulk the better.
If Amazon finds that their consumers have more of a beer budget, I’ll sell them Chug’d for a great price! I’ll even throw in the chicken dance chug-a-lug game for free
Try winezap.com, put in your favorite wine (or try “Betz” or “Turley” if you do not know wine) and you will be directed to numerous places that sell wine. Or just look at costco.com.
In my state you must be 21 to sign for the shipment when it arrives.
Costco vs. Amazon?
omg, thank you for sharing!! Would you love to view my cute photos online? If yes, welcome all here to search ‘xhot’ at mixedfriends . com.
info 1+
Chris Matthieu, you break the number one rule of website design which is DON’T USE EMBEDED MIDIS DEAR GOD ARE YOU CRAZY?
thank god
i like them i like wine
AWS… Amazon Wine Services.. good taste via the web.
Regardless of the wine bashers, the ID verification issues, the “it’s already been done” crowd… I think this is best not for Amazon, but the small wineries out there. Currently they have to go through local distributors… a kind of unnecessary middleman.
We are working on an ISBN for wines called AVIN (www.avin.cc).
The idea is to create an unique indentifier for wine based on the information that the users and producers of Adegga.com have been managing. The list will be licensed under Creative Commons and available for anyone to use.
Cheers,
André
:: Adegga.com – Social Wine Discovery
ID verification is done peripherally online at the time of the order, but of course its easy to spoof. The real check, should, and does take place at the moment of delivery.
Fedex and the other carriers charge an additional $3.50 to ensure that the recipient of the package is over 21. They will not leave the package on the stoop, will not leave it without a signature and they check the recipients drivers license at that point.
So for an underage person to get alcohol online, they have to order it, pay for shipping, wait a week, then using fake id get the package off the delivery guy. At that point i think there are probably easier/faster/cheaper ways to obtain alcohol.
I am excited to see what Amazon bring to the industry, although i’m equally excited by the usb wine tap and will be mailing my 9.95 euros off immediately.
I purchase wine from wineries online all the time. And every single time the delivery person has to check my license before I get it. They won’t leave the wine at the door if you aren’t there, you still have to go to the UPS or FedEx location and flash your ID to pick up your order.
Andre, You should use Numly Numbers as your ESBN. They have already developed an ESN standard and have a great RESTful API for generating new numbers on the fly!
The Three Tier distribution system does not allow producers to sell directly to the retailer….Let’s pray that each state will do away with this arcarne law that was established during Prohibition to protect bootleggers!
Hopefully Amazon can take the Costco road and continue to fight in each state to have this distribution monopolistic law repelled!
Until then my spirit friends, we will continue to pay a premium for low end wines on the internet.
Re: comment #43 form Jurado:
I’d like to make a correction here. While it may not be true in all states, wineries can sell directly to retailers and restaurants. They can even do so online. The 3-tier system does complicate this is some states, particularly for ‘cross-border’ transactions, but it works and this market will grow. For example, CA and WA wineries already sell directly to restaurants and retailers in state. The fact that such online transactions are now legal and compliant will only further the on-going dis-intermediation of the wine industry.
Inertia Beverage Group (I work for them) offers the only online shopping cart for direct-to-trade wine sales, allowing wine retailers or restaurateurs to buy directly from wineries. See here: http://www.winerevolution.com
Re: comment #38 from Henry:
There are more and more wineries in the US and fewer and fewer distributors. Given this expansion of supply and contraction of trade demand, small producers’ best hope is to sell more online. If Amazon can tap into that type of supply, they can aim for a larger selection and better margins, satisfying a growing consumer demand. The ‘long -tail’ is well suited for the wine business – the main barriers being compliance (ripples of prohibition..) and logistics (it cost $15 to ship one bottle of wine..).
Should Amazon decide to operate as a marketplace for small producers they can be a hero to the industry and avoid the messy overhead that wine.com has had to implement.
Cheers!