A SURGE IN ONLINE WINE ORDERS
Not only has direct wine shipping and online wine shopping become a huge issue in the U.S. alcohol beverage industry, but consumers are taking notice as well. In this week’s “Tastings” column by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher in The Wall Street Journal, the writers discussed the enormous popularity of online wine shopping saying:
“Lately, thanks in part to a Supreme Court ruling, state law changes and Americans' growing comfort with the Web, the online wine business has been undergoing a sea change: There's a surge in the number and quality of sites devoted to educating consumers, highlighting unusual regions and, mostly, selling a lot of wine.”
Everyone from huge retail centers such as Sam’s Wines & Spirits in Chicago to small, specialized websites featuring only Austrian or Jewish wines, for example, are joining the trend. About 1% of the U.S. retail business is made up of wines sold online, coming out to almost $26 billion according to the Wine Institute. And the numbers will continue growing as online wine shopping improves. As more states pass laws that allow online wine orders, consumers will take notice and online merchants will keep getting better.
“Customers, too, will push the transformation: While there will always be a market for people who want to order directly from a winery and geeks like us looking for rare stuff, our feeling is that, in the long run, online wine sales -- similar to other online businesses -- will rise or fall based on whether consumers use it as an everyday convenience for everyday wines, just as they use Amazon.com for books.”
“Lately, thanks in part to a Supreme Court ruling, state law changes and Americans' growing comfort with the Web, the online wine business has been undergoing a sea change: There's a surge in the number and quality of sites devoted to educating consumers, highlighting unusual regions and, mostly, selling a lot of wine.”
Everyone from huge retail centers such as Sam’s Wines & Spirits in Chicago to small, specialized websites featuring only Austrian or Jewish wines, for example, are joining the trend. About 1% of the U.S. retail business is made up of wines sold online, coming out to almost $26 billion according to the Wine Institute. And the numbers will continue growing as online wine shopping improves. As more states pass laws that allow online wine orders, consumers will take notice and online merchants will keep getting better.
“Customers, too, will push the transformation: While there will always be a market for people who want to order directly from a winery and geeks like us looking for rare stuff, our feeling is that, in the long run, online wine sales -- similar to other online businesses -- will rise or fall based on whether consumers use it as an everyday convenience for everyday wines, just as they use Amazon.com for books.”
posted at 1:10 PM
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