Amazon to Start Selling Wine

This isn't Amazon's first attempt at selling alcohol. They recently stopped, after facing difficulties with different states' laws.

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urrently, if you want to order alcohol online, you might have to jump through some hoops—several states don't allow the shipment of alcohol across state lines, it can be difficult to prove age, etc. But now, Amazon is jumping through those hoops and sometime later this month has plans to begin selling wine. What's that? They already used to sell wine, you say? Well, yes. And now they're doing it again.

Last year, Amazon stopped selling wine thanks to how complex the regulations for alcohol are in every state. But back then, they were selling it through their own warehouses, and now, they'll be leaving the shipping burden on individual wine producers who want to sell their product on the site.

Soon, one of the departments on Amazon will offer wine.

Amazon is said to be charging those producers a $40 monthly fee for having the wine on their site, as well as taking a 15 percent commission. While that may sound like a lot, think about how much more wine will be sold to enthusiasts—perhaps wines that aren't available in certain areas and the like.

Unfortunately, there's not much more detail on the deals, as wine purveyors that agreed to it had to also sign a non-disclosure agreement.

One thing is for sure, though—Amazon will be taking full advantage of the holiday season coming up, offering promotional deals through Christmas.

While we understand why Amazon is ready to jump into the alcohol business, we wonder if people will be willing to pay the naturally-high shipping prices for something they could just hop in the car and pick up at a liquor store on the way home. For conoisseurs, this might be a good plan, but for the average wine consumer, we can't imagine it will earn Amazon that much profit.