You’ve heard that selling wine can be a rewarding and profitable venture… but you’re unsure how to start. You know one thing: It's not as simple as just stocking your shelves and opening your doors. But what do you need to do to learn how to sell wine?
Responsibly selling alcohol can be daunting. From obtaining the necessary licenses and permits to ensuring responsible service and maintaining accurate records, you’ve got to stay on top of several legal requirements.
In addition, you need to curate a compelling selection, provide excellent customer service, and market your business effectively to attract and retain customers. It's a lot to juggle, but don’t get overwhelmed just yet.
This post is your How To Sell Wine 101. We’ll walk through the basics and then cover the regulations, tools, and tips you need to thrive.
How To Sell Wine: The Basics
Before discussing how to sell wine, let’s examine why you want to do so. What are some of the advantages of selling wine in your store? First, the wine industry is a massive market. It is an almost $200 billion industry in the U.S. alone.
One of the biggest advantages of selling wine is the high profit margin. The average profit margin on wine sold by the bottle in a retail setting is between 30 and 50%. If you offer wine by the glass, your profit margin can soar even higher, reaching up to 70%.
Related Read: The Ultimate Guide to Opening a Liquor Store
When starting to sell wine, you need to understand the audience you’re targeting. Let’s take a look at a few of the traits wine drinkers tend to have:
- Wine drinkers are often affluent: Studies have shown that wine drinkers tend to have higher incomes than the general population.
- Wine drinkers are typically well-educated: Wine drinkers are often highly educated, with many holding advanced degrees.
- Wine drinkers are curious and like to explore: Many are always on the lookout for new and interesting wines to try.
- Wine drinkers are experience-driven: For many, the experience of enjoying a glass of wine is just as important as the wine itself. They're often drawn to unique and memorable experiences, like wine tastings or food and wine pairings.
- Wine drinkers are status-seeking: Finally, wine can be seen as a status symbol, and many wine drinkers take pride in their knowledge and appreciation of fine wines.
Understanding your audience and working to curate a selection and in-store experience that caters to their needs is a big part of establishing a loyal customer base. Adding wine to your offerings can be highly profitable and help you set your store up for long-term success
With this in mind, let’s look at the regulations, tools, and tips you need to know to understand how to sell wine in your store.
1. Regulations and Legal Requirements
The first thing you need to have in place before you begin to sell wine is the right permits and licenses. Let’s examine the regulations and legal requirements for selling wine in more detail.
Related Read: Applying for a Beer and Wine Liquor License? Follow These 5 Steps
Licensing and Permits
Step one to opening your wine shop is obtaining a retail license from your state's alcohol beverage control board. This liquor license grants you the legal right to sell wine to consumers. Review your state and local licensing requirements to ensure you have the proper licensing for the type of wine sales you intend to offer in your store.
Additionally, you may need to secure local permits, like a health permit or certificate of occupancy, to make sure your business complies with all relevant regulations. It's important to research licensing requirements in your area as they can vary significantly from state to state.
It's also important to keep in mind that different licenses are available depending on whether you plan to offer wine for customers to drink on the premises, sell bottles for customers to take away, or both. Once you obtain the required licenses and permits, you'll need to renew them annually to stay compliant.
Age Verification and Responsible Service
Age verification is critical for any liquor store or wine shop. To avoid the hefty fines and penalties associated with underage alcohol sales, you’ll need systems and tools for checking IDs. Be sure to check IDs for all customers who appear to be under 40 years of age.
Investing in a point of sale system with built-in age verification capabilities can streamline this process and make it easier to maintain compliance. A solution like Bottle POS can require an ID scan at checkout, ensuring you never accidentally sell to a minor.
On the staffing side, it is important to make sure that your staff is well-trained in responsible alcohol service practices. They should be able to identify signs of intoxication and know when to refuse sales to customers who have had too much to drink. Consider keeping a log of incidents related to underage or intoxicated customers, as well as refused sales. This shows your commitment to responsible service and protects your business from legal issues.
Tax Collection and Reporting
As a wine shop owner, you are responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax on all wine sales. The first step to accurate and lawful tax collection is registering for a seller's permit with your state's tax authority.
Related Read: Liquor Store Compliance Solutions: 4 Ways Your POS System Can Help
You should also keep accurate records of all transactions, including sales and inventory data, to ensure that you collect the correct amount of tax and can provide documentation if audited.
Investing in the right point of sale system will help you. Choose a POS system with built-in sales reporting and analytics. Bottle POS has built-in reporting to help you track sales and ensure you’re always audit-ready.
You’ll also want to ensure you file and pay your taxes on time, including state and local sales taxes and any applicable excise taxes, to avoid penalties and interest charges.
2. Tips for Selling Wine
Armed with the right licenses, permits, and processes, you’re ready to begin selling wine in your store. However, if you want your wine sales to be successful, you need more than the right licenses. Let’s cover a few expert tips for selling wine.
Related Read: How To Sell Wine Online This Year
Know Your Target Market and Curate Your Selection
You must understand the demographics, preferences, and buying habits of customers in your market to successfully sell them wine. How can you gain this information? Start by conducting market research and engaging with your customers to gain insights into their tastes and needs.
You should curate a diverse selection of wines that caters to your target audience. Offer popular brands, unique varietals, and varied price points to accommodate different tastes and budgets.
Provide Exceptional Customer Service and Education
Exceptional customer service is critical to building a successful wine shop. Many wine drinkers are enthusiasts who crave unique experiences. Turning your shop into a place where they can get those experiences is critical to your success.
Train your staff to be knowledgeable, friendly, and approachable. Encourage them to offer personalized recommendations based on customers' preferences and occasions, helping customers discover new wines and make informed purchasing decisions.
You can also make your store a destination for wine lovers by hosting tastings, classes, and events to educate customers about different wines, regions, and pairing options. These events provide valuable information and create a sense of community around your shop, fostering customer loyalty.
NOTE: Remember to review any necessary or additional licenses required for hosting tastings to ensure compliance with local regulations.
Implement Effective Marketing and Promotions
A strong brand identity and store atmosphere can help you attract new customers and keep existing ones engaged. Use eye-catching displays, informative signage, and thoughtful layouts to showcase your selection and make shopping easy and enjoyable.
When it comes to promotions and outreach, leverage social media, email marketing, and local advertising to reach potential customers and keep your shop top-of-mind. Share engaging content like wine tips, pairing suggestions, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of your shop to build a connection with your audience.
Finally, offer promotions, loyalty programs, and gift options to incentivize purchases and encourage repeat business. Use a robust point of sale solution with built-in loyalty programs, like Bottle POS, to manage these programs and track their effectiveness.
3. Key Tools for Selling Wine
Bottle POS
Bottle POS is a comprehensive point of sale system tailored specifically for wine shops and liquor stores. We’ve worked with hundreds of independent wine and liquor stores, giving us the industry experience to help you achieve your business goals.
Our top features include an extensive product database that simplifies inventory management, advanced analytics and reporting to identify top-selling brands and slow-moving items, automated inventory receiving to save time and reduce manual data entry, dual pricing options to lower costs, and built-in loyalty programs to encourage repeat business.
Pricing: Get the price for your customized solution using our transparent build and price tool.
mPower Beverage
mPower Beverage is a point of sale software designed for retail stores selling beer, wine, and liquor.
Key features include intelligent ordering and transferring based on business metrics like current selling velocity, data migration and integration with a pre-loaded database and easy data export for integration with various services, and automated reporting for daily sales, weekly exceptions, and monthly year-over-year comparisons.
Pricing: mPower Beverage’s pricing starts at $1,000 upfront plus $120 per month.
POS Nation
POS Nation offers an all-in-one POS solution designed for small to mid-sized retailers, including wine stores, with 24/7 support to help business owners grow their operations.
Key features include mix-and-match bottle pricing to increase sales and move inventory, AI-powered sales analytics to identify top-selling products and items needing promotion, automated inventory management to simplify receiving and counting processes, case break inventory tracking for accurate stock levels, and age verification to minimize the risk of fines and penalties.
Pricing: Get a custom quote using POS Nation’s online pricing tool.
How To Sell Wine the Easy Way
Following the information in this guide, you should now be well-equipped to obtain the necessary licenses, implement the right tools, and establish the processes you need to sell wine in your store.
Though all these tips and tools are critical, one of the most important tools in your wine-selling arsenal is the right point of sale system. If you want to maximize your profits and boost your bottom line, you need a POS system designed for wine sales.
Critical features like age verification, case break inventory, and loyalty programs all work together to help you streamline your operations and find success through wine sales in your store.
Bottle POS offers a point of sale solution designed for wine shops, liquor stores, and package shops. Our solution is the ideal tool for any retailer looking to sell wine legally — and profitably — in their store.
Schedule a demo of Bottle POS today to see how our solution can help you streamline your operations and provide a better customer experience.
