online sales

[daveflintstone]

I've visited some of your websites and seen links to online retailers. How does this work? Do you ship them product directly? Is it working out well? I've called a couple to inquire, but didn't even get a return call.

[Paul Tomaszewski]

In my experience the online retailer is just like any other liquor store. We sell to the distributor, distributor sells to the online retailer, and then where they can ship to is based on the regs in the given state. Approximately half of all the states do not allow for shipping of distilled spirits products.

[porter]

In Missouri you sell/transfer from bond to your retail/tasting shop, still owned by you, then sell it online from there.

You hit all three without going through distributors.

It's correct though that you need to watch where you are shipping to and have labeled appropriately. The online wine clubs sort of started the problem of folks under the local drinking age getting product. Best to form a small LLC for the online purchases, trying to break the liability chain a bit.

[Collin]

What Paul said is my experience as well. All of our online retailers have a brick and mortar shop that is supplemented by the online sales. http://www.drinkupny.com is a good example of this. The liquor store is Borisal and they are located in Brooklyn, but (by what they say) they can send nationwide via online orders.

[will]

Dave,

Since you're in Hawaii, I'll mention that one of the guys on Maui was selling direct to consumers over the internet, and that appeared to be consistent with Maui regs, but the regulators forced him to stop. I never asked him for the details, but it had been a significant source of revenue for him...he was bummed.

California regs specifically say that a producer can sell to an un-licensed person out of state so long as the product leaves the State within some period of time (like 30 or 60 days), and no excise tax is required to be paid. The trouble with the situation is that other regulations require licensees to act in accordance with laws of other states as well, and that's a can of worms.

Each state has different regulations on imports, and FedEx does a fair job of explaining the situations HERE under International.

Good luck,

Will

[Jedd Haas]

Great link, Will.

[daveflintstone]

thanks for the advice, and yes Will, that's a great link you included.