Buying Wine Online

By Author: William Devin
Total Articles: 1
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Buy wine online is a useful and convenient way to source wines from unusual wine varieties. There are many advantages and a couple of pitfalls to buying wine online. This may seem an unnecessary problem to you at first. If you can buy wine at your local supermarket, liquor store or off license then why should you bother with the Internet?

Well, the answer is that it is all about choice. If you want a wider choice then online is the way to go. You can choose just about any wine and compare prices. There are basically two choices for buying wine online. You can buy directly from the winery, or you can buy from specialist online wine and liquor merchants.

Buying from the winery is fine if you know that you want a particular wine. Most wineries have a mail order service that will be integrated into their website. You will fill in an online form, or download one to mail or fax and the wine will be on its way. But there are a couple of catches. You will probably need to buy a minimum of a dozen, or perhaps six bottles. You can usually order a mixed dozen, but again you will be restricted to wine from that particular ...
... winery.

The second catch when buying wine online is freight. If you are buying wine online from within the same country you may get the wine freight free. It's not really free, but included in the price. If charged, freight is generally reasonable if you are buying a dozen or more bottles, and live in the same country as the winery.

Buying from a specialist online merchant has two advantages.

You can generally make up a mixed dozen of wines from different wineries, regions or even countries.
You will get a much better deal on freight for foreign wines. The merchant has imported the wine for you, and handled any customs issues.

There is considerable competition between merchants. Consumers buying wine online are likely to benefit from competitive prices, high commitment to service, deals on freight and special offers.

The online commerce industry is growing quite rapidly. The merchants are very sensitive to consumer concerns about security. Huge expenditures on research and development have lead to systems to protect the consumer, and the reputation of the merchants. For example many merchants use VeriSign which is an integrated system to secure the transmission and storage of sensitive data such as your credit card details.

If you are buying wine online from an established merchant you can be reasonably sure that they will deliver. They should have a privacy policy and a secure data system. There will be information about these issues on the website, often accessible from links or icons on the foot of the homepage.

There can be an issue about where to get the wine delivered to. If you are not at home during the day the wine could disappear from your front doorstep. Some delivery services allow you to give instructions such as 'leave at the side gate.' You may need to make arrangements with a neighbor or get the wine delivered to work. It is worth doing a little research on before jumping in to buying wine online. Check out a couple of merchants to see what they offer in terms of range of wines, delivery charges, security policies etc. Subscribe to their online newsletters.