News Report #5

Andrew Darcy
News Report #5
March 19, 2009

“Another Start-Up Tries to Sell Wine Online”
By: Claire Cain Miller
New York Times
Published: October 7, 2008
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/another-start-up-tries-to-sell-wine-online/?scp=2&sq=wine&st=Search

Selling wine online has traditionally been one of a lack of success. Consumers have not taken liking to this trend of buying online either because it is difficult to ship wines between state lines or because of their biases to going to their local vineyards/community stores to select their own bottles. Despite the fact that most online wine sellers have bellied up, AmericanWinery.com is going to try yet again to get their product out. This site feels that they have hit the market in at the right time to gain public support and are going to allow wine aficionados to critique right along side the end consumer. They are getting most of their wine from local wineries that comprise of 75% of the total 424 different selections of wineries that they offer on AmericanWinery.com. The wineries set their own prices for the wine that is sold through their website and they claim that this public perception of purchasing wine via internet is increasing in the United States. This site serves as the middle man basically between your local vineyard who displays their goods on AmericanWinery.com, where the consumer purchases the product and then the vineyards distribute their goods to the end user.

This idea would not even have been a possibility thirty years ago. Information has enabled them to try this business venture and I feel they may have a market niche, even though I would never buy a bottle of wine from the internet. Despite the fact that people may purchase bottles of wine from AmericanWinery.com, I feel most people are like myself and enjoy either purchasing it at your local grocery store or going down to your local vineyard to get the true ambiance of the wine. Good idea, but probably will not be around that long and will succumb to the fate of the many other internet wine providers that have came before them.