Amazon Prime One-Hour Beer Delivery

That's not what the article states - they use a local licensed retailer to supply the alcoholic beverages to be delivered.

And it appears Surdyk's already offers local delivery for orders over $100.

 

I've never tried it, but it will be interesting to see how this change in retailing impacts production over the years.

Anyone remember last century when there were Borders and B Dalton's and mom and pop bookstores everywhere, and now -- yeah, they still exist -- but there are way fewer?

Got to imagine a similar dynamic here. I suspect that general liquor stores and package stores catering to upper middle class areas served by Amazon Prime would be the first to go, while the real targeted fancy pants craft bottle shops on the one hand and real localized corner shops on the other could probably hold out for longer.

Still, got to imagine this would cut into all retailers' sales if it expands. How that impacts what us BAs can get a hold of is an interesting question.

 

Oh this better not be a thing in Albany. I have no self control. My wallet and liver are so f**ked if this is comes to Albany.

 

God, can you imagine people sitting on their computer refreshing when the new deliveries come in to drain all the walez?

 

Another reason I will not be getting any Alexa devices ever. I already have a problem with drunk orders. Now imagine drinking and saying "Amazon, order me another 6 pack of Pabst".

Sounds like a terrible idea for me, but great for Amazon!

 

Sounds good but at the same time I like to snag beer with fresh dates. With this you will never know what date the beer is till it arrives and I am sure the guy picking it does not care. LOL this could be the answer to old nasty beer, deliver it out and eliminate from stock ha ha.

 

Why do you think that. The beer is going to be purchased from a retailer just delivered by Amazon.

 

One retailer, not 30 or 100 or whatever. Or am I missing something?

 

Where does it state it's only one retailer?

 

Are they hiring beer guys/girls like us to be advisors and personal shoppers? I'll send my resume ( it would be my BA page!!!)

 

The article mentions one local retail partner serving Chicago.

Look, I've got no idea how many they're gonna partner with in each market. Maybe Amazon just becomes a delivery service for anybody with a liquor license. But I doubt it. My guess is they become a major player that cuts into other stores' business.

 

From a handful of retailers who can abide by the 1 hour delivery policy, no?

That still doesn't bode well for the small bottle shops, or those who don't want to dabble in having Amazon run part of their business.

 

The beer has to be packaged and distributed from somewhere with a quick turn around. It's going to have to be planned out in depth before. Most likely by retailers who can afford to have one or two folks on staff just to package up beer within 15 minutes of an order, considering that limits the drive time to 45 minutes, and gets quickly shorter with each delayed minute.

It doesn't seem like it will bode well for small retailers, but I suppose time will tell.

 

The retailers aren't going to deliver the beer just package it. Amazon drivers will pick up and deliver the beer.

 

Right, but it still means whatever retailer(s) they go through are going to have to be able to package up the beer within 15 minutes to provide time for a delivery. That's a pretty short turn around considering the timer starts when the customer hits "order", so missing that message by 3 minutes means you've already lost 1/5th of your pulling and packaging timing. I still don't see it working well for small retailers who can't afford to have at least one of their employees on call to leave the sales floor and package beer.

 

If you're a small retailer you won't have a massive warehouse of product to package up, assuming halfway competent employees, this shouldn't be much of an issue. The real question is, for a small to medium size bottle shop, how are they controlling inventory? If they have 4 on the shelf, an amazon customer buys 1 and I wander into the store and buy the case... I suspect they will only be able to focus on much larger SKUs with significant back stock (10+ units) to avoid the possibility of this happening, which will bump most craft SKUs because the retailer won't want to risk getting stuck with too many days of supply.

 

This takes me back to the old days. They used to call liquor store a "package store" where I grew up. My grandmother would get her 5th of Old Crow delivered every few days to the door. When they quit doing deliveries, I would ride my bike to the corner convenience store and get it for her along with her smokes. That was like 40 years ago.

 

Sounds like you grew up in New England, likely Connecticut, where "package store," or "packy," was (still is) the term.