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 [...]
Massachusetts ABCC: Alcohol and Groupons Don’t Mix
“I am hopeful that the long-established, clear, bright lines of the boundaries of legality have not vanished in the rear-view mirror of entrepreneurism driven by unbridled and imprudent, if not reckless, enthusiasm,” wrote Massachusetts ABCC General Counsel William Kelley to Groupon in February 2011 according to The Boston Globe.
At issue are deals offered by group [...]
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 [...]
Massachusetts Question 1: Sales Tax on Alcoholic Beverages:
Why Deciding How to Vote is Harder Than You’d Think
History tells us Massachusetts voters are willing to support tax increases, especially when they’re convinced it’s for a good cause. Need to build a new high school in your town? Chances are the tax increase will find support because folks in Massachusetts think highly of public [...]
An Ounce of Compliance is worth a Pound of Data Breach Cleanup
For most wine stores their efforts to secure information against possible theft have been driven by banks and the card issuing companies. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) launched its campaign to define security standards in 2006, and has been largely successful in promoting these standards to retailers and their vendors. Now a new source of [...]
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 [...]
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