Drinking at home
Online buyers struggle to get through, buy wine, spirits on PLCB website
Plenty of people are frustrated at not being able to access the state’s online Fine Wine & Good Spirits shopping site, but the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board says some people are getting on and buying bottles.
PLCB spokesman Shawn M. Kelly said Monday that from the time limited sales resumed on April 1 until 11:59 p.m. Sunday, the agency accepted about 4,300 orders and did nearly $386,000 in online sales. He also said the site — www.finewineandgoodspirits.com — had many more would-be shoppers, with about 1.4 million visitors and 7.4 million page views.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. Kelly provided an update on Monday’s online sales, when the state accepted an additional 1,705 orders for 8,616 bottles and $154,590 in sales — by far the most in one day since April 1. “Our entire team is working really hard to increase capacity on the fly,” he said.
Hence some people’s frustration. But Mr. Kelly reiterated what the PLCB said when it announced the resumption of online sales — that consumer access would be limited and randomized until it gradually ramps up.
The state closed all of its 600 stores as well as online sales on March 16 to minimize the spread of COVID-19 among shoppers as well as its employees at its main online fulfillment warehouse.
Now it is fulfilling as many orders as it can with small crews at three locations — one each in Pittsburgh, Montgomery County and Wilkes-Barre. Pennsylvania adults may make one credit card or debit card transaction per day and buy up to six bottles of wine and spirits per transaction to be delivered to a home address where an adult can sign for delivery.
“We are evaluating fulfillment capacity on a daily basis to optimize the number of orders we can accept each day, and the number of orders accepted each day will vary until we can better understand demand and fulfillment capacity,” Mr. Kelly said Monday morning. “To date, we have been able to increase order capacity, and we expect that we will continue to do so. Today, we’re looking to accept more than 1,000 orders again.”
At least one Pittsburgh-area consumer was expecting to receive her order Monday. Carnegie’s Marchelle Haygood heard about the resumption of online sales from a friend on Facebook and was able to get on the Fine Wine & Good Spirits site at about 6 p.m. on April 1. She says she very easily purchased the limit of six bottles — of apple whiskey and apple vodka — for herself and her sister, and she was expecting delivery on Monday afternoon. She got the box Tuesday. “I have never purchased wine or liquor online,” she says. “It’s the luck of the Irish!”
The PLCB’s Mr. Kelly declined to give any pointers to getting through to the site to be able to make purchases, reiterating, “We ask that customers be patient and understand that the PLCB is doing the best it can under extraordinary circumstances to balance consumer demand and public health.”
The 10 top-selling items from April 1 to April 5 (and number of bottles sold) are all spirits, which may be in part because consumers can still purchase wine at some supermarkets:
1. Tito’s Handmade Vodka (1,030)
2. Smirnoff Vodka (401)
3. Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Black Label Tennessee Whiskey (380)
4. Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum (339)
5. Platinum 7X Vodka (263)
6. Absolut Vodka (260)
7. Jim Beam Straight Bourbon (237)
8. Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum plastic bottle (220)
9. Jameson Irish Whiskey (213)
10. Fireball Cinnamon Whisky (211) Mr. Kelly noted that, during the last 2018-19 fiscal year, the PLCB online store fulfilled 39,000 orders totaling about $5 million in sales — about 0.2% of $2.5 billion in total sales. So online sales were a small part of the operation. The 6,005 orders taken in these first five days of resumed online sales are about 15% of the online orders taken all of last year.