Online Crossroads: Marketing Agents Seeking to Sell Wine Online get a Hearing at the SLA
The State Liquor Authority of NY is preparing a new set of guidelines that could have national implications for how wine is sold online. While the jurisdiction of the SLA is limited to licensed wholesalers, retailers and restaurants, the issue at hand is how unlicensed marketing agents can promote wine. As a price-posting state NY [...]
The Impact of the Internet (to date) on the Liquor Industry
The landscape of this industry has changed pretty significantly in the past 10 to 15 years, since the first websites started to appear. Most every corner of the business now interacts with the internet to give improved product quality, more efficient supply chains, and improved consumer access to products. Following the direction of [...]
How Market Conditions Affect Wine Sales Online
Helping customers and sourcing product is the daily work of running a store and you tend to take for granted the conditions of your local market. A foray into new markets recently reminded me that retailers in some states don’t enjoy the benefits of a printed beverage journal or its online equivalent to find distributor [...]
Mass Retailers Seek Access to Broader Markets
In a change of policy for MassPack, the state’s retailers are trying to have the restrictions on their ability to “export” wine lifted so they can compete for sales in other markets. A bill was submitted to the new session of the state legislature sponsored by Rep. Torrisi(Dem. North Andover). It has yet to be [...]
2011 Promises to be a Year of Change in the Massachusetts Wine Market
New Englanders will tell you: If you don’t like the weather wait a few hours - it will change. This winter might be the exception to the rule (it’s been relentlessly cold for months it seems) but the Massachusetts wine market bears similarities to the weather. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out [...]
The Arguments Against Allowing Retailers to Ship Interstate
There are two different campaigns being fought that concern the interstate shipping of wine. Wineries have been largely successful in convincing the courts that they deserve the right to ship direct to consumers and will operate in compliance with state laws, whether favorable or not. To date their campaign has yielded 37 states and DC [...]
Where’s My Stuff? Why Constant Clarity on Order Status is a Valuable Commodity
It’s been almost a month now since I placed the order. It seemed to go off without a hitch and the e-commerce retailer inspired confidence they could ship to Massachusetts by partnering with a local retailer for fulfillment. I received a confirmation E-mail shortly after placing the order, and thennothing. The two bottles of premium [...]
Have you talked to your Wholesaler about Interstate Shipping?
Have you talked to your Wholesaler about Interstate Shipping? We have a unique view of the wine industry at Beverage Media in that we work with retailers, wholesalers, importers and wineries to support their businesses. Of these industry players the mostly maligned tends to be the wholesaler who is hidden from public view and appears [...]
The Campaign to Create a National Market for Wine Retailers
It’s pretty clear that retailers have been slow to organize in their own defense. For at least ten years, wineries have been campaigning for the right to ship direct to consumers, their triumph being the Granholm vs. Heald Supreme Court decision in May 2005. As a result wineries have access to direct shipping in a [...]
Ecommerce as Fitness Training for Your Store
Once in a while I meet a prominent retailer who insists the business model that is successful for his store wouldn’t work online. In a recent discussion a large retailer described recognizing the need to have a presence online but had low expectations from ecommerce and was reluctant to invest energy for little expected gain. [...]
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