The Wall Street Journal reports this morning on stories suggesting that Amazon.com is about to get into the wine business, noting that “the Seattle company posted a job advertisement for a senior wine buyer to build relationships with wine vendors and add product selection to its shopping site.”
According to the story, “Amazon doesn't sell wine on its site now, but it's not for lack of trying. It invested $30 million in 1999 for a 45% stake in start-up Wineshopper.com, which later failed. Wine.com sells gift baskets of food on Amazon's site but not wine. Amazon would have to deal with a complex set of rules for shipping wine in certain states.”
According to the story, “Amazon doesn't sell wine on its site now, but it's not for lack of trying. It invested $30 million in 1999 for a 45% stake in start-up Wineshopper.com, which later failed. Wine.com sells gift baskets of food on Amazon's site but not wine. Amazon would have to deal with a complex set of rules for shipping wine in certain states.”
- KC's View:
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Interestingly, there is a possibly conflicting story about Amazon’s plans on Decanter.com, which reports that Amazon plans to work with Wine.com – which shipped wine to more than 100,000 customers in 2007 – in developing its wine business. If true, that might mean that Amazon wouldn’t need a wine buyer of the sort speculated about by the Journal.
Then again, it might not. Stay tuned.
