why won't wine.com ship to me?

I live in DC. DC law specifically and expressly permits an out of state retailer to ship to a consumer in this “state.” I had a search for a particular wine entered into wine-searcher. Last night I got a hit - three bottles at wine.com. So I got online and tried to buy them - but when I told the system I live in DC the three bottles became unavailable! I just did a chat online with wine.com and the person kept telling me to tell the system I live in DC and I kept explaining the problem. His response was they basically only ship locally due to restrictive state laws. But when I made the point that this isn’t applicable to DC he told me to go to wine-searcher to find the wine locally!

Has anyone who lives in a “good” state ever managed to get wine.com to ship something located in say, CA, to them? How?

You know I have to really want this wine if I’m (1) on this site while I am at work and (2) trying to buy wine for my overstuffed cellar!

Perhaps because you live in a District and not a State (and they can only ship to “states”)? [whistle.gif]

Weird reasoning, but I’ve heard worse.

As I understood wine.com (take that as a significant caveat) the way they structure things is state to state, each state having a separate inventory (and presumably warehouse facility) enabling them to comply with rules for each state. So if you say shipping to CA you will get a very different inventory than shipping to WA or DC. They arent’t structured as a single inventory that can ship to all legal locations like a K&L, etc

Maybe you can ship to someone in the allowed state and re ship?

Note: I have always felt that this setup is silly and opposite of economies of scale, but they organized to work around the archaic shipping rules vs true efficiency of operations, hence why they have always been in the highest pricing tier as well and a generally a pass for me.

well, my point is that because it is legal to ship here, the “store” can comply with the rules while shipping wine from CA to me.

Shipping the wine to someone in DC for reshipping to me is burdensome for whomever agrees to take charge of it for me - and of course more expensive although that’s not really the issue.

You are correct, but that is outside of their model, hence the resistance. I would guess they have a very firm company policy against making exceptions, regardless of actual legality as they want to protect their model. I would also guess (pure speculation) that they are not an advocate for enabling more open shipping as they have invested heavily into the bastardized current system and want to preserve that advantage. Last I checked they can theoretically ship to more states than any other wine “etailer” with the caveat that selection for each state varies

With the same caveat my understanding is the same as Scott’s. I had the same experience as you - found wine; specified shipping state; wine disappeared. I chatted and was told it was due to the warehouse location of the wines and they weren’t will to ship from the ‘wrong’ warehouse. It was not a legal concern but instead one of logistics. They will ship wine to you - just not the wine you want.

Scott is correct. They can, but they don’t. By the way, Wine.com has been one of the major forces behind preventing interstate shipping laws from opening up.

I was told that wine.com considers each state a separate sales territory and they will not ship from one store to another territory. Almost like a franchise model. This was a while back but from a wine.com employee. It wasn’t about shipping laws. At least that’s what they told me. Maybe someone in that state can get it for you and then get it to you?

It’s a hybrid that evolved to accommodate the worst features of wine selling in the US.

According to their press release last year, they have six fulfillment centers and each has a particular region, so partly it depends on which one serves you.

Berkeley, CA
Westbury, NY
Miami, FL
Houston, TX
Maplewood, NJ
Avon, MA

They call their model “3 Tier E-commerce” and support the three tier system, but at the same time want to reduce restrictions on interstate shipping.

The original Wine.com failed because you can’t be a national wine store, which Amazon also discovered. So a few industry people bought the name and URL, assuming customers wouldn’t know what was up anyway, and they set up these regional hubs. But it’s not national inventory, as you found out.

Well thanks for the explanations. Makes sense I guess. One benefit is I am prevented from buying wine I want but certainly don’t need.

OTOH, it’s three bottles of a great premier cru at half the cost of Fu’s $200 price tag.

Who the hell fronted them the money necessary to build/buy/rent warehouses in 50 different states?

That’s a staggering amount of seed capital for a dot-com.

That really is a drag to lose out on, then.

Well turns out I was wrong about a warehouse in every state, as there are regional hubs…

So you can only order from wine.com if you’re in CA, NY, FL, TX, NJ, or MA [in which case you also pay sales tax on the order]?

They are in lots of states, but probably have 6 locations where they (or affiliated or subsidiary companies) have distributor licenses.
Then they (again, or affiliated) have retail licenses in each state.
Inventory will be similar within each region.
And you pretty much pay sales tax everywhere now anyway

You probably dodged a bullet; I wouldn’t trust them with Burgundy. If the price is that good, dollars to doughnuts it’s the wrong wine.

Well I sure hope not because I figured out a work-around and bought them!

I didn’t know that you needed more wine, Maureen. Hope all is well

Need? Ha! But this one of the best 2010s i have had and I’ve been looking for more.

Hope all is well with you. Still practicing? Ever get to dc?

Done practicing for 2-1/2 years now. Taking our youngest to college this weekend - probably won’t make the District until next year. Hope to see you then.