While at the 49ers, we created a tablet app to enable sales of wines both in-stadium as well as for shipment to fans' homes. When sketching out the workflow in the app, we had to rework it many times with the help of our ABC counsel to get it right. We had to do a number of very specific things that you wouldn't think of right away as highlighted in the ABC's third party marketing document from 2011 including:
- Full winery name listed on any page where the wine was depicted for sale
- Mode for wineries to set their own prices
- Opportunity for wineries to accept or reject every order
- Fulfillment of shipped wines executed by the winery
- Escrow account set-up to take a 10% donation for the 49ers Foundation off of wine shipped to fans' homes
Our app development process highlights the weight placed on clarifying documents from the ABC and underscores the highly regulated nature of all aspects of wine sales. The wineries we partnered with all had retained counsel and had detailed conversations with me to ensure we were executing this in a way aligned with ABC regulations. For boutique wineries, the weight of these ABC regulations is extremely costly and time consuming. I believe ABC regulations should be more clear and less stringent to ensure small-scale wineries can continue to operate in this market.
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