How To Legally Sell Wine

Whats The Value Of Your Wine

Collectible fine wine has inherent value and real value. Inherent value comes from the wine itself. The way it was made, including the terroir on which the grapes were grown, the classification of the wine, the producers reputation, and the techniques the winemakers used to process the grapes all give the wine inherent value. Real value comes from what happens after the wine is already bottled, such as how it was stored and how many owners it has had in its lifetime.

A wine must have both of these types of value in order to sell for the highest profit. Look at the list of qualities below, and count how many accurately describe your wine:

Getting A Premises Licence

Next, youll need to apply for a premises licence from your local authority/council, in compliance with The Licensing Act 2003. A premises licence can be granted to any fixed commercial property where the handling and dispatch of alcohol is taking place including warehouses, storage facilities, shop floors and more.

All businesses selling alcohol must have an appointed Designated Premises Supervisor that has been appointed for the relevant premises this include businesses selling alcohol online. The person in this role must not only be nominated for it by the premises license holder, but must also hold a personal licence.

Unfortunately, its unlikely youll be able to run an online alcohol business from your house as local authorities dont tend to grant licences to domestic dwellings. An outbuilding on your land, however, could be given a licence as long as it has the relevant planning permission to operate as a commercial premises.

Along with your application form, youll need to submit a floorplan of your premises which highlights the areas where alcohol will be kept and handled.

As part of your application, youll need to describe how your business will comply with the four licensing objectives. These are:

As your business grows, you may need other members of staff to also get a personal licence and share this responsibility.

Purchasing An Existing License

You will need to call the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission to request a “transfer of ownership” application. If the license is expiring in less than four months, the current owner of the license must also file the “renewal application” for the license at the same time.

When you send in your “transfer of ownership” application and fee, you will have to include with it:

• A “consent to transfer” form signed by the current owner
• Four copies of your floor plans, signed and dated by you, the applicant
• Articles of Incorporation, if any
• A signed lease or proof of ownership of the premises where the license will be used
• Property tax clearance from your county treasure

If you plan to move the license to a new location, you will also need to complete a “transfer of location” application and send it along with the other items listed above.

Please determine the type of application forms you need and then call the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission to request specific forms.

*Please note that no transfers will be allowed until all sales and property taxes are paid, and any pending violations are resolved. You should check with the current owner about these items.

You May Like: Pallet Wine Bottle Rack

Introduce Your Business And Tell Us Your Story: How Did You Decide On What To Sell And How Did You Source Your Products

We noticed an untapped market in the wine sector. At Premier Estates Wine we like to keep things simple, a lot of people find wine to complicated. We offer only 3 ranges and it’s easy to find a wine that you like. No other wine company offers deals all year round including FREE next day delivery on every order placed. We are working together with wine suppliers across the globe.

Shipping Beer Liquor And Wine With Ups

UPS allows direct-to-consumer alcohol shipment, with a number of strict rules. You can find all the UPS rules and regulations on the UPS Wine & Alcoholic Beverage Program page.

UPS alcohol shipment rules include:

• You have a UPS account number
• You have signed an alcohol shipping agreement contact with UPS
• You have a federal license to ship alcohol
• You have the correct permits to ship alcohol in the states your sending to
• You must follow the guidelines set in both the sending and receivers state
• You must use inner packaging of EPS foam or molded fiber tray
• You must package the alcohol in the center of the shipment, away from the packages sides
• Your package must be deemed sturdy by UPS
• You must clearly label the shipment and meet UPS, origin state, and destination state guidelines
• You must clearly label the package as containing alcohol
• You must receive a signature upon delivery from an adult that is 21 or older

Don’t Miss: Can You Drink Wine In Ketosis

How To Ship Alcohol In

Shipping alcohol in-state is the simplest alcohol shipping method but is still convoluted and confusing.

Since you wont be crossing state lines, youll only need to meet the alcohol shipping requirements of the state youre located in. However, you will need to be familiar with the local city laws for the different towns and municipalities in your state. Luckily, alcohol distributors should already be familiar with their local laws regarding alcohol production, distribution, and sales.

Consumers can also use one of the many alcohol e-commerce and delivery app companies such as Drizly or WineDirect to order alcohol directly to their home or to send beer, wine, or spirits to a friend.

Using WordPress With An Ecommerce Plugin

Whereas an ecommerce builder sets some creative boundaries through its templates, WordPress when equipped with its top ecommerce plugin, WooCommerce offers unlimited creative freedom, but only if you know how to code. WooCommerce is less of a ready-out-of-the-box solution than a website builder, but it does enable you to create a truly bespoke online store.

WooCommerce is known as an open source software its free to install, but youll need to find and pay for your own web hosting, security, and website themes. Thats really simple to do, however.

If you like the sound of WordPress and WooCommerce, then youll need to find a hosting provider. WordPress itself recommends Bluehost as the best option, and we totally agree. It comes with WooCommerce-specific price plans to make your life much easier, and it boasts a brilliant server uptime to ensure your alcohol website never has any performance hiccups.

Do you wish someone would just tell you exactly which online store builder you should use? Youre in luck! Our quick and easy quiz gives you a personalized recommendation, so youll know exactly which one is best for your needs. Click below to get started

Don’t Miss: What Wine Has The Lowest Calories

How To Get A Liquor License In South Carolina

The South Carolina Department of Revenue regulates licenses for the state. See their website for a list of license types and their specifics. All applications take six to eight weeks to process. Within 30 days before you submit your application, you must run an ad in the local paper of record stating your intention to pursue a license for your place of business. A license to sell wine, liquor, and beer in South Carolina costs between $5 and $2,200 every two years, depending on your specific license type. There is also a filing fee ranging between $200 and $300.

Obstacles To Getting A Liquor License

Most of the obstacles associated with obtaining a license are bureaucratic. Working with your state’s governing agency, you must determine what kind of license you need and the availability of that license.

The type of license you need depends on a variety of factors that you will explain to your state’s ABC board. For example, you’ll need to explain what type of establishment you operate , if you’ll let customers bring their own alcohol , the hours and days you will sell alcohol, and if you will be manufacturing alcohol on the premises.

Based on your answers to these questions, your state’s ABC board will tell you what kind of license you need, and if one is available. Many states have a limited number of liquor licenses, making new licenses hard to come by. If that is the case in your state, you may have to purchase your license from an existing business.

Once you find a liquor license, you will need to submit an application. Some of the items you must provide with your liquor license application are your employer identification number , business license, sales tax permit, health permit, building permit, and zoning permit. The building and zoning permits are used to determine if your business is in a location and facility where it is legal to sell alcohol. For example, some states won’t grant you a license if your business is too close to a school.

Don’t Miss: How To Get Red Wine Out Of A White Shirt

Add Payment Options For Your Customers

Shoppers are wary of fraud and identity theft. How do you establish immediate trust? Simple: add payment providers that shoppers are familiar with, like or PayPal Checkout. These engines are popular across the web. Learning how to build a wines ecommerce website the right way means learning how to build trust with your customers.

Consider Offering A Wine Of The Month Subscription Box

Subscription-based businesses are becoming increasingly popular as customers grow to love the convenience of never having to reorder their needed items. Instead, they sign up for automatic billing, and the products they need arrive on a regular basis. Subscription boxes are also very popular, but work a little differently: rather than ordering specific products, the customer receives a scheduled package with one or more selected items for them to try.

Wine is perfect for the subscription box model. Wine enthusiasts are always looking for a new experience and a new vintage or brand to try. You can create a Wine of the Month subscription box to automatically send selected wine to customers on a monthly basis. This approach offers many benefits, including a consistent revenue stream for you, and a way to introduce customers to wines they’ll love and want to reorder separately resulting in more sales.

You can also increase your brand recognition by using custom packaging in your Wine of the Month subscription boxes to create an “unboxing” experience. Unboxing is a process in which a customer unpacks a shipped product and creates a video or photo gallery that shows others what it’s like to receive a shipment from a certain business. Customers love seeing unique packaging, surprise bonuses, special inserts, and other fun things during an unboxing.

Read Also: Is Malibu Wine Safari Open

How To Get A Liquor License In Massachusetts

To apply for a retail liquor license in Massachusetts you will need to complete a new retail license application along with a notarized Criminal Offender Record Information form. Depending on which city your business is in, you may be able to apply online. You will send these forms along with a $200 application fee to your Local Licensing Authority . Then, you will publish an advertisement for a public hearing on your application in the local paper of record. It must be published within 10 days of your application being submitted. The hearing will be held between 10 and 30 days after your application is received.

The LLA will either approve or disapprove your application. If it is disapproved, you can appeal to the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission , who can overturn or uphold the LLA decision.

How To Sell Wine Online Safely Legally And For The Best Price

Auction sites like eBay aren’t the right place for selling your fine wines

Picture the scene: youre clearing out the spare room, and you cant believe the amount of stuff that you didnt remember you owned. What are you going to do with all the books, trinkets and long-forgotten holiday souvenirs? Trudge to a car boot sale or stick them on eBay and see what happens?

Auction sites like eBay are fantastic for selling curios, knickknacks and the like but as a platform to sell wine online in the UK, especially bottles with some real value, youre just not looking in the right place. There are practical and legal reasons for this but also more importantly youll find it tricky to realise the true value of your wine.

We find it hard to believe that youd take your wine collection to a car boot sale and similarly, you shouldnt sell your fine wine on a site like eBay.

• Our 3 step buying process

Read Also: Sell Homemade Wine

How To Get A Liquor License In Illinois

The cost of a retail liquor license in Illinois is $750.00. When you submit your application you must include your local liquor license, sales tax number/Illinois business tax number, and federal employer identification number . In addition, if you plan to allow on-premise consumption you must obtain a certificate of insurance. A photocopy of your local license is also required. Information on applying for other licenses can be found on the Illinois Liquor Control Commission’s website.

How To Get A Liquor License In Connecticut

To get a license in Connecticut you must submit an application along with the necessary paperwork and payment at a drop box at the Department of Consumer Protection Self-Service Center in Hartford. There are 26 different types of license permits you can apply for. The on-premise liquor permit application requires you to receive approval from your local municipality and submit a variety of general business information. On-premise liquor permit applications take 60 to 90 days to process, and range in price from $60 to $2,750. They must be renewed annually.

Also Check: How To Make Glasses Out Of Wine Bottles

Alcohol Regulation And Sales Laws

Along with the repeal of Prohibition, the 21st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave individual states the right to control what parties can sell alcohol within the state, how the distribution of alcohol in the state would take place, and who would be able to legally possess alcohol within the state. States and even local jurisdictions will have significant differences regarding who can legally sell, buy, and possess alcoholic beverages. The federal government defines an alcoholic beverage as any beverage that contains over 0.5 percent alcohol per volume, but states and local jurisdictions may define this differently, and there may be some variation.

The federal government established the minimal legal drinking age and the age at which one can buy alcoholic beverages in the US as 21 years old, according to the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act that was passed in 1984, but again, states do have the power to alter this. Some states provide certain exceptions for this mandatory legal drinking age however, most states comply with the statute because if they do not, they risk losing federal funding.

How To Get A Liquor License In Maine

The Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages & Lottery Operations provides a step-by-step process for acquiring a license. You can acquire your application materials online and submit your completed application, supporting materials, and fees via mail or in person. Note that on-premise licenses require approval from the local municipality before receiving state approval. This may require a public hearing and for the business to advertise their intent to acquire a license in the local paper for three consecutive days. For further questions contact the Division of Liquor Licensing and Enforcement at 624-7220 or by emailing

Also Check: What Kind Of Wine Is Stella Rosa

State And Local Alcohol Beverage Authorities

In addition to a federal permit, you also need to obtain permits at the local level when you plan to sell homemade wine. Each state has its own authority to regulate the production, sale and distribution of alcohol within its borders. There may also be citywide or countywide regulations. Start with your state’s alcoholic beverage control commission. The state office is responsible for processing your permit and can direct you to the appropriate office for seeking a local license.

Tell Us About The Back

Orankl Reviews provide customer trust and gives us insight into how the consumer perceives our products. ReferralCandy is an app that rewards referring your family and friends to our store. We give out a 5 GBP gift card for each referral. Aftership centralises all the parcels that you send out. The customer receives an email that their parcel is on its way, and we can ensure it arrives without any issues. We handle everything in house.

You May Like: What Is The Best Temperature For Wine Cooler

Think About Your Branding

Wine is an industry with a lot of opportunity, but because there are so many wine sellers already, you need to stand out. Itâs no longer enough to have a great product when customers can easily browse hundreds of wine brands at the grocery store. You can use Americaâs wine lists to jumpstart your branding if youâre feeling stuck.

Your case of wine should have one or more distinct characteristics. Flavor is important, but so is your eCommerce packaging. Some customers will select a wine because the bottle or packaging looks exciting to them.

Many wine drinkers tend to be higher income, interested in excellence, and focused on quality. Use these characteristics and those found in the best wine lists to guide the type of wine you want to sell. You can also use the following to clarify how you want to be seen by customers:

• What kind of imagery and wording best represent my wine?
• What type of experience are those who buy my wine looking for?
• What wine price is a good fit for my products?
• Is there anything about my wine or its packaging that conveys a message thatâs inconsistent with my branding?

Your brand doesnât need to be fully materialized before you launch your website, but it should be represented clearly. Using a consistent color scheme, hosting an easy-to-use website, and providing answers to FAQs are important factors to include.