Amazon Is Getting Into the Alcohol Business

Amazon Wine Sales

Amazon has again announced that it will start selling US-produced wine to its American customers by the beginning of October.

But before you start getting excited about buying wine online, there’s one catch: it will only be available to people in about 26 states due to interstate regulations, but the company is working with New Vine Logistics, a firm that specializes in interstate transactions, to avoid any legal issues that may arise in the process and attempt to increase the distribution of wine as time goes on.

Amazon is jumping in on the wine craze at the right time. Annual wine consumption is on the rise and the Stonebridge Research Group said American wine sales last year were between $30 billion and $32 billion. But e-commerce sales accounted for just 7 percent of those sales and few services online can connect wine lovers with US-produced wine.

Age restrictions will obviously play a major role in Amazon’s plan to sell wine and there’s currently no indication of how it will stop the sale of the alcohol to minors. Regardless, Amazon thinks it’s on to something with selling wine on its site and wants to capitalize on the growing market.

Amazon invested $30 million into Wineshopper.com in 1999, but that site lasted one year. Now we’ll see if this venture lasts any longer.