Nancy Hudes and I are collaborating in Regulatory Solutions Consultancy, LLC, a consulting firm positively leveraging constraints and finding advantages in the licensed beverage industry. If we can assist you with matters of alcoholic beverage law, do not hesitate to give us a call.

The most popularly delivered alcoholic beverage product in the U.S. is Veuve Clicquot champagne.

Across the U.S. alcoholic beverage sales growth is decelerating, but still growing. That trend does not hold in Maryland where consumption was actually down last year for each beer, wine and spirits (.. with 19.054 gallons consumed per capita in 2018 down from 19.684 gallons consumed in 2017).

But there is a bright spot and a tremendous business opportunity in the retail sales of alcoholic beverages in Maryland.

Delivery!

It was recently widely reported that nationwide online alcohol delivery sales grew over 32% last year, increasing at an average rate of just about 3% month over month. There is no similar state specific good data on delivery in Maryland, but the trend line is similar.

Statistics in this arena are all over the board, including whether what is being tracked is sales by gallon versus dollar amount of sales. Consistently looking at sales by gallon, .. just over 50% of all online ordered deliveries are wine. Beer and spirits are within single digits of splitting the difference with nearly 25% each of deliveries.

It is reported the most popularly delivered wine, and alcoholic beverage product, is Veuve Clicquot champagne. Madame Clicquot, the French business woman who was very much a product of the French Revolution took over her husband’s wine business when widowed (veuve in French) at age 27 and developed a novel fermentation process still used today, died in 1866, but would be proud of the exports to America by the company that still bears her name. In a fun Maryland connection, Betsy Patterson Bonaparte, the Baltimore born first wife of Jerome Bonaparte, Napolean’s brother, was a known fan of Clicquot champagne.

Anecdotally, it is suggested that much of that Veuve Clicquot is gift giving and outside of personal consumption habits.

Bud Light was the most popular delivered beer. And Tito’s vodka was the most delivered spirit, actually representing nearly 3% of all deliveries.

The reported data does not purport any great difference in gender. That is, women purchase about 55% of alcoholic beverages that are delivered. Ages of those ordering for deliver skew a bit younger than sales generally, but again the variation, about 3 years younger, does not appear significant from a marketing perspective, although anecdotally it is suggested orders by app versus by telephone trend significantly younger (.. apparently older customers place their orders by telephone; possibly a landline).

Nationwide, supermarkets are poised to become the most important vehicle for alcoholic beverage deliveries (.. supermarkets currently represent 44% of wine sales and 25% of beer and spirits sales in the U.S.), but such will not be the case in Maryland where supermarkets are generally not permitted to sell adult beverages. Moreover, in Maryland where delivery can only be in the county where the packaged good retailor is licensed (not statewide as in nearly all other states), existing retailers are buttressed by the trend toward delivery.

In Maryland the market opportunity for delivery is with existing licensees and there is no good reason that the increase will not track nationwide statistics of more than 32% growth over last year.