Amazon suspends wine sales effort
Monday, October 26, 2009
Amazon.com is apparently shelving its planned effort to sell wine
online. A little more than a year after word of the effort trickled
out , a senior Amazon account manager told wineries in an e-mail that
the company has decided "not to resume shipping." "As you know, we
were excited to work with you to build the AmazonWine business," Dini
Rao said in an e-mail first reported by WineBusiness. com . "For
that reason, this was a very tough choice for us. Many of you took
the time and leap of faith to really support us." Amazon
representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Word of the effort leaked out in September 2008 when a nonprofit
vintner group announced it had partnered with Amazon to drum up
interest from its members to sell wine through the retail giant.
However, its fulfillment partner New Vine Logistics briefly suspended
operations this summer before securing additional financing from
Inertia Beverage Group. Since the Supreme Court ruled in May 2005
that states must grant the same shipping rights to out-of-state and
in-state wineries, winery-to- consumer shipping has become legal in
35 states , according to wine advocacy group Free the Grapes. But
state laws governing direct wine shipping vary greatly, creating an
onerous task in managing compliance. Amazon had dabbled in the wine
business before, investing $30 million for a 45 percent share in
Wineshopper.com in 1999 , a start-up that was acquired by Wine.com in
2000 before going through a series of layoffs. Wine.com has a
storefront on Amazon, through which it sells gourmet food baskets
but not wine.
