Founded in 2012, Amazon Wine’s tagline was “Discover wines from around the world delivered to your door, direct from the winery”. Well, as of January 1st, 2018, Amazon Wine will be no more, due to complications involving laws affecting alcohol sales for companies such as Amazon that operate both as a retailer and marketplace operator. For Amazon, the decision to shut down Amazon Wine might have been an easy and obvious one, seeing as the marketing giant now has the ability to sell wine and other alcoholic beverages through its Whole Foods and Prime and Amazon Fresh venues.
Amazon has recently sent out an email to its wine sellers, telling them that their wines will still be available to be sold through Amazon channels other than Amazon Wine. The email reads as thus:
“Dear valued Seller, as Amazon continues to offer customers additional retail options for buying wine, we will no longer offer a marketplace for wine at this time, and Amazon Wine will close on December 31st, 2017.
Wine will continue to be offered through Amazon Fresh, Prime Now and Whole Foods Markets. Please see our FAQ for further details.
Thank you,
Amazon Wine.”
Amazon intends to notify its wine customer’s base in the near future via email and a message on the Amazon Wine webpage to the effect that the Amazon Wine page will be closed as of January 1st, 2018. Seeing as Amazon’s Fresh and Prime Now services can deliver alcoholic orders faster than Amazon Wine ever could, and without having to contend with laws that hamper alcohol trading, it makes sense that Amazon decided to shut down Amazon Wine in favor of these new, worry-free services that can take and ship orders faster than most any other alcohol delivery giants, including Blue Apron, Postmates and Drizly. Even Wine.com, which offers a wider variety of wines and other alcoholic beverages, cannot compete with Amazon’s fast delivery, and let’s face it, getting your booze faster is often a great incentive to switch shippers – and while other suppliers may have more choices, Amazon isn’t that shabby on brands, and will have something for most wine and booze fanatics across the globe.
So, goodbye Amazon Wine, Hello Amazon Prime and Whole Foods drinking aisle….We’ll just have to wait and see how it all works out.