Last week, a Mashable report featured spirits delivery apps attempting to disrupt – or technologically advance – a resilient business. Mobile apps Drizly, Thirstie, and Drinkfly serve Chicago, New York and Boston with same-day delivery, and new player Saucey uses a peer-to-peer Lyft and UberX model to deliver to parts of California. These businesses are unique in that they don’t stock any items and pick up from licensed retailers instead. Liquor laws are the barrier-to-entry to spirits delivery, and these apps have found a way around them.
L2’s Digital IQ Index: Spirits features Drizly as a Seamless/Fresh Direct model for the category and an opportunity for advertising. For example, Pernod Ricard has placed ads for Jameson, The Glenlivet and Malibu on Drizly’s carousel with a convenient add-to-cart option. The L2 report also predicts Amazon will capture a significant share of Spirits sales when it enters the market. Amazon currently sells domestic wines in 22 states and imported wines in 11 states, and has announced plans to roll out Spirits storefronts in November.
Amazon’s entry is expected to change the Spirits business with convenience and competitive pricing. (Apps like Drizly add on the convenience fee instead of taking a percentage of sales to skirt liquor laws, which raises the final price.) Apps such as Drizly could lose a portion of their consumers who use it to stock their cabinet, but those searching for on-demand Spirits are likely to stay.