Which States Allow You To Buy And Sell Wine Online
Navigating each states specific laws can be challenging.
Every state has its own rules and regulations regarding the shipment of wine, and some are more strict than others.
For example, in some states, only wineries are allowed to offer D2C shipping. But in other states, retailers can engage in DtC shipping, as well. Additionally, some states have limits on the quantity of alcohol that can be shipped.
To help make it easier, we put together the chart below which specifies which states allow or prohibit winery direct shipping and retailer direct shipping. It also lists volume limitations as well as any special rules about D2C shipping.
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Does Alcohol Need To Be Shipped To Consumers In A Special Way
Shipping alcohol is not like shipping a t-shirt or a book. Instead, businesses have to jump through a few hoops in order to make wine shipments.
The United States Postal Service does not allow for alcoholic beverages, including wine, to be shipped through them. While this could theoretically change in the future, for now, consumer wine shipping has to take place either through UPS or FedEx.
Wineries must also sign an alcohol transportation contract with whichever shipper they choose. Wine shipments must also be signed for by someone age 21 or older upon delivery, which is something you should make clear to your customers before they purchase wine from you online.
Additionally, by opening a shipping account with UPS or FedEx, depending on your shipping volume you can access great discounts on shipping rates. These savings add up quickly!
How To Sell Craft Beer Liquor And Wine Online
Alcohol delivery has historically been a more realistic option for chain businesses like grocery stores or for apps that exist solely for that purpose. For breweries, bars, and independent restaurants, things have been a little different. Without the capacity to host their own online ordering or delivery solutions, many smaller businesses have had to opt-out of these opportunities in the past.
Thankfully, several to-go & delivery apps for breweries that have entered the market in recent years to make it more feasible for breweries to sell alcohol and coordinate local deliveries online. 2ndKitchens 2Go even has options for curbside pickup as well as donation management. For long-distance shipping of alcohol, which can also be tricky, a more run-of-the-mill e-commerce solution may be more fitting, as long as the restrictions of the shipping services you use are strictly adhered to.
Learn how to legally ship alcohol in all 50 states with our direct-to-consumer guide to shipping beer, liquor, & wine.
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Do You Want Your Personalized Recommendation
Top tip
Ask friends, family, and colleagues to test your website before you publish it. That way, youll gain an outsiders perspective on how your website looks and feels, which should help you create the perfect experience for your future customers.
You now know how to sell alcohol online, but the hard work doesnt stop here. Yes, you can now deliver your beautiful brand to doorsteps around the world, but you need to promote your website and get your business out there before you can start earning serious money. In order to reach new customers and increase sales, you must nail your digital marketing.
First of all, you should connect your online store to social media. This feature is offered on both Shopify, Wix, and Square Online, and enables social network users to click one button and jump straight to your online store.
Shopify is soon releasing the feature, which means Shopify will generate a Facebook store for you and seamlessly connect your Shopify inventory to a new Facebook storefront that looks stunning and creates a lovely shopping experience.
You can also . This means users can purchase your products directly from Facebook. Did you know that Mark Zuckerbergs behemoth has over 2.6 billion active users? Think of all those untapped customers!
Spend some time flicking through alcoholic beverage trade calendars, such as 10times, and see which events would offer the most reward for your business.
Top tip
Wine Is A Unique Product
Selling wine online is different than selling general merchandise, so you want to use software specific to selling wine. There is a lot to think about – everything from legal restrictions , alcohol taxes, compliance, shipping and wine club processing. Wine is an interesting product to sell, so working with someone thats done it before will save a winery a lot of hassle.
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Selling Your Wine Online Your Wine Is Your Product
If you own a winery or your own line of alcohol products, this is the business model you should follow. In this particular online alcohol selling business model, your product is your wine, and the app or website platform used to sell is just another channel of sales.
Here, you partner up with a web and app development company to build the digital side of your business. Then you list out your alcohol products on your brands website and mobile app. People will visit these platforms and order the wine products that they want, and you deliver those liquor products to them at their home.
For this business model, you need to have an efficient delivery system where the staff is equipped and trained in managing alcohol delivery and customer interaction. The best thing about this business model is that the entire profit margin is yours. You also create an amazing brand image with a complete wine service from manufacturing to last-mile delivery.
Why 2021 Is The Perfect Year To Launch A Wine Business
We all knew that soon every business would be selling its products and services online. Some adopted this trend early, while some tend to catch up after their sales started to drop. 2021 was a disastrous year in terms of health and economic factors. Weve seen loss of countless lives as well as money, but theres always a silver lining to every gray cloud.
A quick adaptation of digitization in businesses has been the silver lining of 2021. Businesses have understood the importance of being present for their customers at the touch of a button. Several stores and small businesses were late to upgrade and have now closed for good.
If you own one of the lucky alcohol wineries or stores that are still alive or are yet to start your business journey, make sure digitization is the first thing on your mind. Although the year may seem very gloom even to try, it is still the perfect year if you plan to launch an on-demand wine delivery business.
An alcohol delivery service app does a lot more than just being a new channel of sales for alcohol drinks. It enables wine merchants to collect information about wine consumers that can be used to categorize their customers into small groups. Then these merchants can create hyper-targeted marketing strategies, offer customized deals, and give them a personalized experience via the liquor delivery app.
So, as I said earlier, make sure that digitization is the prime objective on your mind when you launch your wine business this year.
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How To Sell Wine Online Like A Pro
We are more than halfway through another selling year. The landscape for selling wine online has become ridiculously competitive thanks in no small part to the pandemic. If you desire to sell MORE wine online in the remaining months of the year and move into the new year with confidence, this article is for you!
If you are still operating your ecommerce business the same way you did in years past, you are in serious danger of being left behind.
The beautiful thing about the advice below, is it is 100% within your control to implement and none of it is expensive. There are so many other things about making and selling wine that you cannot control. So, do yourself a favor and take a hard look at what you are doing now and take the steps outlined below to upgrade your strategy.
So How Do You Successfully Sell Wine Online
If you want to sell more wine online you will need to do a few things:
- Email is the most effective way to drive traffic. Collect email addresses in the tasting room, thank your guest for their visit, and have them come back to purchase online. It is the single most profitable thing you can do. Your best online customers will have probably had a great experience at your tasting room and emails turn tasting room buyers into long term, repeat customers.
- Care about mobile. Today, almost 50% of internet traffic comes from a mobile phone. You have to have a mobile friendly site , or risk losing sales due to a bad mobile experience for the customer.
- Pay attention to the user experience. In your tasting room, people buy more when the user experience is great. Online, Zappos is so successful because its a great customer experience. Online wine buyers want large bottle shots, easy to understand promotions, great shipping rates and a simple checkout process on the web.
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Since Launch What Has Worked To Attract And Retain Customers
Our focus on a quality experience for all in the value chain has created a virtuous cycle where everyone feels that theyve come out ahead on each transaction. At the heart of this virtuous cycle is the Wine Spies team, itself.
In the early days, we relied on word of mouth and to this day this is one of our strongest sources of new customers. We enjoy industry-beating customer retention, with some loyal fans still ordering from us after 13 years. Were so grateful to engender such loyalty, and we are so grateful that our loyal Operatives just spread the word on their own.
Today, we the team that is working to build our audience further, through ever better merchandising, interactions on social media, and improvements to our selling platform. Were going to launch a new mobile app, soon, giving our Operatives an even easier way to interact with us and take advantage of offers.
Overall, our small team works hard to deliver exceptional value to everyone that we work with, and we all have an all for one, one for all mentality that extends beyond the comradery of the team, to their duty to and interactions with our suppliers and our customers. Were really all in this together.
Bluecheck Advanced Age Verification
Since alcohol is an age-restricted product, youll need to enable an age verification on your online store to prevent fraud, reduce risk, and comply with FDA and payment processor regulations. By enabling BlueChecks advanced age verification on your online store, youll have access to a 3-tiered cascading verification system that uses 26 databases to compare customer data to, yielding a 92% automatic verification rate without any additional information. Their solution works as follows:
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How To Sell Your Wine Based On Your Needs
The way you sell your wine depends on the type of collection you have, and who your ideal buyer is.
Collectors who only invest in the most iconic bottles in the world need to market their wines to the same type of collector. For these types of collections, Vinfolios Fixed Price Auction is a good choice. This platform is designed for collectors who own high-value bottles worth at least $10,000 combined, which have high critic scores. Experts help you determine the best price, and the fees are based on a sliding scale.
If your own collection is somewhere in-between a casual drinker and a serious investor, an online wine marketplace will offer the most options. With Vinfolios marketplace, you can set the price or starting bid for your wine, and theres a 15 percent fee for this service.
Knowing how to sell your wine isnt complicated once you consider your needs. The key to any successful wine sale is to focus on whats important to you, whether thats replacing older bottles with new ones or making the most money back on your investment.
Selling your high-end wine collection is a simple process with Vinfolio, your partner in buying, selling, and professional storage. Contact us today to liquidate your finest bottles, and get access to the worlds best wine.
Create Your Ecommerce Platform
Setting up an attractive and user-friendly eCommerce platform is a must for any business owner. Your website is responsible for almost everything in your business: receiving traffic, generating leads, order processing, offering content, displaying products, and accepting payments through an eCommerce payment gateway.
BlueCartâs eCommerce platform is a simple, SEO-friendly option for food and drink sellers. Customize your site with just a few clicks and use our built-in eCommerce marketing automation tools to generate sales. Schedule a demo today to see the convenience of our platform for yourself.
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How To Sell Wine At Auction
If you’re looking to sell wine at an auction, you should research if a similar wine or collection has sold recently. This will give you insight into the current wine bottle price of your wine, and if there’s enough interest. If you can’t find a price history for your wine, you may still be able to sell it. Ultimately, that decision rests on the auction house.
Next, approach multiple respected auction houses to find the best value for your wine. They will provide you with an estimate based on your collection, vintage, and condition. Once you’ve chosen the auction house, they will take over from there. You can expect to pay a seller’s fee of up to 18% when the sale is finalized.
How To Sell Wine Online
If you own a winery and have your own wine label, then selling wine online is just another channel of sales and revenue. You can either become a merchant/seller on existing eCommerce alcohol selling platforms or launch your own online wine selling platform.
If you register for a third-party eCommerce platform, you need to pay a commission on every sale you get from that platform. While building your own platform is a costly affair in which you own all the profits.
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Getting A Personal Licence
Anyone with a Personal Licences is legally allowed to sell alcohol on behalf of any business as long as it has premises licence .
The personal licence holder must authorise anyone in the business without the licece in order for them to be able to sell alcohol, online or otherwise.
Getting a personal licence is a two-step process:
Step 1: To get a personal licence, youll need to undertake a short training course and gain a licensing qualification, such as the Award for Personal Licence Holders.
Step 2: Once youve done this, you can apply for a personal licence through the licensing department of your local authority/council using this form .
For more information regarding obtaining a personal licence to sell alcohol, take a look at the Gov.uk page.
How Are Winemakers Benefitting From Dtc Strategies
It is no secret that the alcohol industry is one of the most regulated industries in the United States. Indeed, the United States has a long and complex history and relationship with alcohol, stemming back to temperance movements during the turn of the 20th century and prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Nowadays, in the wake of the e-commerce trend that has spread across industry after industry, wine producers have begun experimenting with how their businesses can benefit from DTC sales and operations. However, unlike other industries, one of the biggest barriers to entry into the DTC market for wine producers has been regulations. In this article, we will discuss some of the regulations facing wine retailers, the benefits of online direct to consumer sales, and how winemakers are going DTC with their wine businesses.
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Wine Industry Experts On How To Successfully Approach Wine Sales In A Virtual World
It is possible to sell wine to people that have never tasted your product. In fact, if 2020 taught us anything, the world is ready for more opportunities to buy wine online. Looking back to late March and early April, when lockdowns peaked in North America and Europe, the stats confirm this. The alcohol industry saw triple digit growth instantlysales the week of April 4th were nearly 450x higher than that same week a year ago.
An impressive number, but one that mops up the alcohol category as a broad one, without taking into account how many new-to-them bottles that people purchased, how many new-to-them wineries they tried in this phenomenon that is now known as a boom. To assume that all wineries and wine businesses have benefited would be an overstatement, a vast one. Online optimization still seems out of reach for many producers, wine businesses, and industry suppliers around the world.
Sustainable solutions
But it doesnt have to be. Wineries and wine retailers that have been tentative toward going all in for DtC and ecommerce arent necessarily missing out. In fact, riding a wave thats tied to a global pandemic is not a long term plan. Sustainable, reliable solutions and ecommerce tools for wineries are available now, and theres time to take advantage of the industrys momentum and get these resources in place.
Best For Storefront Customization: Woocommerce
WooCommerce is a powerful ecommerce platform built on WordPress. This platform takes pride in putting content at its core so its ideal for wineries and breweries that, aside from selling wine online, want to create an active blog platform too.
What distinguishes this platform from the rest is that its completely open-source, which allows business owners to modify and customize any part of their storefront. Its ideal for big wineries because they will have the opportunity to add an unlimited number of products and users. Additionally, wineries can take an unlimited number of orders.
WooCommerce offers wineries a number of specialized wine and vineyard templates that can help them build a beautiful online shop. These templates include gallery images where you can showcase your wines in the best light. They are all responsive and built with modern browsers in mind.
WooCommerce provides wineries with the opportunity to create bulk discounts and volume discounts based on the number of wines ordered in the customers shopping cart.
If you decide to sell wine online with WooCommerce, make sure you make the most out of the Product Table plugin. This tool allows wineries to display product attributes, add an unlimited number of images, and include a filter functionality. Additionally, WooCommerce gives clients access to a number of payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Square.
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