Drunk On Love? Your Designated Carrier’s Guide to Valentine’s Day
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Wine delivered is cheaper
Than dinner for two.
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and lovers (and hopefuls) everywhere are about to contend with a problem of their own making — the rose bouquet price surge. Americans are expected to spend $1.9B on flowers this year in observance of this mid-February tradition. The massive demand increase drives up production and transportation costs associated with temporary labor for harvesting, additional air freight for roses originating from Colombia and Ecuador, and domestic warehousing and trucking operations. The florist can expect to pay 2–3X over regular wholesale prices, and an eligible bachelor in a high-end market like New York City may pay upwards of $8 for one long-stem rose (x 12 for a dozen). Add some ornamental greens, wrapping paper, a tag and a gift box, and BOOM you’ve got yourself an impressively spendy bloom. Likewise, dining out on Valentine’s Day is known to be a ripoff, or to put it more kindly, not very economical. Spend the same inflated amount on any other day and you’d get twice as much food and twice the attentiveness from your server.
But who are we to complain? We can’t put a price tag on love, and since we’re in the delivery business, we actually give thumbs up to folks who are ordering a lot of gifts online for their beloved humans and animals. (Pet spending is expected to total $886 million this Valentine’s Day.) Yet, we want to proudly remind the shipper community that unlike our national or regional competitors, we don’t ever do peak season surge pricing. We don’t run our business like the flower cartel! It so happens that one of our customers are totally aligned with our philosophy in this respect, and they happen to have the perfect accoutrement for your Valentine’s Day celebration.
VINO 🍷 with SAME-DAY DELIVERY
From the mouth of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay: “Valentine’s Day is the worst day of the year to go out. Busy kitchens with tons of diners means you don’t get the true feeling of the restaurant. You should be cooking on Valentine’s. What’s more romantic than a meal cooked for your partner with a good bottle of wine?”
If you want to heed Chef Ramsay’s advice, know that AxleHire already delivers everything you need for a romantic night at home — from meal kits to wine. K&L Wine Merchants operates three stores in California (two in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Hollywood) that offer local same-day delivery, as well as an ecommerce site from which anyone 21 or older can order wine and spirits for shipment via common carrier, as long as the delivery address is in a state that permits it. AxleHire takes care of Bay Area deliveries, and K&L even allows its customers to consolidate previously ordered will call items for delivery to save them a trip to the store. By ordering with at least a six-hour lead time, recipients can choose from three delivery windows (8 AM to 11 AM, 11 AM to 2 PM, and 2 PM to 5 PM) during normal business hours, which means they will definitely be ready for some Netflix-and-chill by supper time.
DtC SHIPPING is COMPLICATED 🤯
Direct-to-consumer alcohol shipping is the inevitable destination of that ecommerce train meandering through the wine country. The route, however, is littered with legal relics dating back to the repeal of Prohibition, when individual states won the authority to regulate the production, sale, and distribution of alcohol within their jurisdictions. The model that prevailed across most states was an extremely oppressive three-tier system that required a producer to sell only to an in-state wholesaler, which was permitted to only sell to an in-state retailer, which then sold to the final consumer at a store location. The arrival of the internet and ecommerce obviously changed things. The 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling for Granholm v. Heald relaxed the restrictions on DtC shipments from wineries across state lines, but this didn’t help retailers without a brick-and-mortar presence loosen the stranglehold that in-state wholesalers had, and still have, over many local markets. Laws governing liquor sales are even more restrictive. For example, a retailer like K&L only ships wine to ten states and the District of Columbia, and they don’t ship beer or distilled spirits at all outside of California. Needless to say, the current web of laws is not friendly to a whole generation of consumers conditioned by Amazon and the like to satisfy all their wants and needs with a few simple clicks.
But relief *may* be in the horizon for out-of-state DtC retailers. Another legal challenge, Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Blair, is currently on the SCOTUS docket, and a decision is expected by June 2019 that will likely address whether it’s permissible for states to disallow non-resident entities from selling and shipping liquor to in-state recipients. Prohibition ended eons ago (1933) with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. If and when AxleHire delivers you that craft beer from across the country, it would be a minor miracle worth celebrating with some bubbles 🍾!!! (Read on for K&L’s recommendations.)
As a carrier, we are rooting for alcohol shipping laws to be finally brought in line with how most other consumer products are treated in the ecommerce universe. We are excited about the new omnichannel opportunities available for vintners, distillers, brewers, and other retailers to reach a wider audience. This is good news for consumers, who will benefit from larger selections and more competitive pricing. Already, there are some innovative marketplace platforms that give consumers a great online shopping experience and better access to in-state and permissible out-of-state products while keeping the shipping liability squarely with individual vendors or retailers. Off the top of our head we can name a few — Minibar Delivery, Saucey, Caskers (liquor only), and Hopsy (craft beer plus a home draft system). Some of these services offer a fantastic app-based experience for on-demand local delivery or regular shipping. For the most part, DtC shipping is still only available in less than a third of the states. Wine Institute’s PSA: Direct shipping of alcohol in Utah is a felony! Generally, if you live in UT, AR, MS, AL, KY, RI, DE and you prefer to get your favorite wine directly from the winery the couch-potato way, we recommend that you move. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the future.
Some Numbers …
Wines Vines Analytics reported that total DtC shipments topped $3.0B in 2018, up 12% from the previous year. Producers would do well to up their online game. Rabobank research, as quoted by Beveragedaily.com, indicates that “the top 20% of wineries selling through their websites are responsible for 90% of revenue flowing through the channel with an average order value of $363.” According to Christian Miller of Full Glass Research, “a lot of winery DtC is driven by the winery visit, whereas online purchases from retail is driven by a variety of factors more related to practical concerns.” Interestingly, Bourcard Nesin of Rabobank noted that production capacity and bottle price were not correlated with a winery’s online success. “Instead, the most important factors were the size of the winery’s email and how much it charged for shipping.”
So it all comes down to practical concerns like shipping charges! For that reason alone shippers should work with a cost-efficient carrier like us, but here are a few more that explain why AxleHire is the last-mile solution of choice for DtC domination.
Some Carriers Don’t
The USPS does not ship alcoholic beverages (with a few exceptions for liquids like mouthwash, cold remedies, and cooking wine — good to know for trivia night but otherwise totally irrelevant). UPS and FedEx would ship wine, but not beer or spirits, directly to consumers. We are willing to deliver all of the above, as long as the shipper is properly licensed and abides by relevant federal, state, and local statutes. For example, we have delivered for Hopsy, which offers craft beer 🍺🍺🍺 from local breweries and operates four warehouses in three states.
And When They Do, They Charge More
Once again we will mention those pesky surcharges, which don’t exist in AxleHire’s universe. A successful delivery attempt concludes with obtaining a signature from an adult — a standard benefit that’s included in our last-mile service offering. FedEx and UPS both charge $6.05 for their Adult Signature Required option. Passing this on to consumers might hurt conversion, especially for smaller purchases, but it also makes no sense for a shipper to absorb it and increase its cost of doing business when there are better choices.
Higher Delivery Success
Since we are able to provide real-time app or SMS-based tracking to the recipient (who picks the delivery window if offered by the shipper), this highly coordinated process gives us a leg up over our competitors in successful first-try delivery attempts. Because a real adult with a valid photo ID needs to be present to receive any alcohol shipment, the carrier cannot just leave the package by the door and call it a day.
One-Stop Solution
B2B line haul for licensed wholesalers, dealers, distributors, manufacturers or importers is also in our wheelhouse. AxleHire is able to take care of your barrels, bottles or kegs over their entire journey from producer to consumer. Give us a ring!
We wish everyone a happy Valentine’s Day❣️Here’s the takeaway from this post that you’ve been waiting for— two excellent champagne suggestions from K&L’s Gary Westby:
Ariston Aspasie Brut Rosé Champagne “This is from a small farm in the northwest corner of Champagne in a tiny village called Brouillet. It is made of even parts Pinot Noir and Meunier, all grown on the estate. Half of the juice is macerated with half of the skins to get as much aromatic complexity and rosé flavor, but without the wine becoming tannic. This has so much of the elusive red cherry fruit that makes rosé so special. Not only is this delicious, but it is made by a great couple: Paul Vincent and Caroline Ariston, who are still super sweet on each other after 23 years of marriage.”
Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne “This defines the entire rosé Champagne category. Composed of 40% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir and 30% Meunier, it gets its color and rosé flavor from 8% red wine. This red wine is almost exclusively sourced from Billecart’s own village of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, from massal-selected Pinot Noir plots of 60–80 years old. The finished product is the most elegant, restrained, dry and delicate wine that one could drink. The complexity is there if you search for it, but the pleasure is easy to find!”
The pleasure of same-day delivery is indeed easy to find now. Some of us will definitely avail ourselves of this whole Valentine’s-delivered experience and enjoy a glass or two, while we mull over the possibilities of Singles Day, an Alibaba-trademarked Chinese invention that Americans would probably import at some point. The 2018 edition of this November 11th shopping event took in $30.8B for Alibaba in 24 hours (contrast Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales of $6.2B and $7.9B, respectively). So yes, let’s MAKE SELF-LOVE, NOT TRADE WAR 😘
Cecilia Tom
Cecilia is passionate about building efficient and resilient systems for the greater good. She is the lead storyteller for AxleHire.
