Buying Your Wine Online
Pros and Cons

Surfing for your favorite wine online and you’ve found it? Before you click, check out these tips:

Pros:

• The possibilities of what you can buy are almost endless.
• Lot’s of info is a just a mouse click away. Just do a search on the wine you are looking for and see all the possibilities that come up.
• You can search for any details about any characteristic of the wine. You can get info about ratings, reviews, awards, suppliers, retailers, announcements, etc. In fact, it’s a good idea to do this research even before heading out to the local wine store.
• You can browse and join wine forums and blogs to learn more about wine.
• Sometimes you can find bargains.
• You can comparison shop different online merchants without getting up from your computer. Price differences can be substantial.
• You can find wines that are not available locally.
• You may save on your state’s sales taxes. Each state, however, has different laws regarding charging taxes.
• You can buy wines directly from the winery. Like being at the winery, you may find wines they don’t offer anywhere else.
• Best for bulk buying and club memberships. Unless you want a wine not available locally or the online price is irresistible, it is best to buy single bottles at the store.

• You can participate in online wine auctions.

Cons:

• Shipping costs can be high.
• State liquor laws can inhibit or limit what you can buy. While the merchants should be on top of which states they can ship to, research that yourself to be sure. Silly as it sounds, some states consider direct shipping of wine a felony. Unfortunately, that has to do more with politics and the liquor distribution lobby than any real moral or harmful effects of such shipping.
• You are not seeing the bottle you are buying.
• You cannot see how they stored the wine.
• Things can go wrong in the shipping process. Check with the retailer as to how their shipping process works. Check if they have expedited shipping and how much it costs.
• You will have to wait for the shipment to arrive to enjoy your wine. Sometimes that can be quite awhile due to weather conditions (e.g. summertime ground shipping is limited due to hot weather). Patience will need to be a virtue.
• Someone of legal age has to be available to receive and sign for the shipment.
• Like shopping in the store, you do not sample the wine before you buy it.
• Unlike a store, there is nobody to ask about the wine.
• If the wine that arrives is faulty or the wrong one, it’s a pain to rectify that. Check the retailer’s return and exchange policies.

Now, you can do that click.

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