Booze, beer, wine now just a click away
LCBO adds online shopping of 5,000 alcoholic beverages for delivery to home or store
It won’t come as quickly as a pizza, but Ontarians can now go online to order beer, wine and spirits instead of heading to the nearest LCBO store.
Tuesday’s launch of shopping on LCBO.com continues efforts by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government to make buying booze more convenient and boost sales of Ontario wines, craft beers and distilleries.
Purchases of $50 or more can be delivered to your home, cottage or office by Canada Post within three days for a $12 fee (plus tax) or be picked up at a liquor store within 12 days at no extra charge, Finance Minister Charles Sousa said.
The site has 5,000 products from Canada and 85 countries — a bigger selection than the 3,400 at the LCBO’ flagship store on Queens Quay — and is expected to expand to 16,000 within a year.
About 800 items are online exclusives.
It all means thirsty customers in smaller locales can enjoy a wider ar- ray of products on par with residents of big cities like Toronto.
“We’re making life easier for people by putting the world at their fingertips,” said Sousa, who has already cleared the decks for beer and cider to be sold in 60 supermarkets, with wine landing on 70 stores’ shelves this fall.
“It’s the biggest shake-up since Prohibition,” added Sousa, who went online earlier in the day to order some Ontario and British Columbia wine and a bottle of port that was boxed up for him at a press conference in the Queens Quay store.
Sales, however, are expected to be small in the first year — about $10 million to $15 million in comparison to the whopping $5.57 billion worth of booze sold at the LCBO’s 655 stores last year.
“If I was a small brewery or small winery, and I was only able to deliver to five or 10 LCBO stores, now we’ve opened the entire province,” liquor store president George Soleas said of producers participating on the website.
“You can have your products delivered now to anywhere within the province of Ontario. That’s huge.”
Canada Post will follow LCBO protocols to make sure anyone accepting delivery is of legal drinking age, said Soleas.
If the customer is not home, the delivery will be left at a nearby post office for pickup.