I ordered from them about a month ago. They took my order. I waited and waited, but no ship confirmation. So I contacted them. “Sorry, we don’t ship to Colorado”. They told me they could use a third party and asked me to increase the order to have it make more sense for the third party. I cancelled the order.
The only downside with third party shipping is rush orders, which (seemingly) can’t happen.
That said, if you’re like me and looking to source wines which are priced competitively & unavailable in your locale, it’s great to still have a shipping option from K&L.
One by one the states are tightening the noose on out of state retailers. I can’t prove it, but the new cease and desist orders seem to appear about 4 months before November, if you get my drift. Like K & L, we use a third party shipper. He received three cease and desist orders since July. Ohio was the latest.
It is getting to the point where some of our old time customers we can no longer ship to have us ship to a relative/friend in another state or some place they will be for work/vacation. Love these die hard customers.
We also doubled our sales of Wine Checks. Visitors come in and hope we can ship their wine because the winery(ies) can’t. Shipping is getting expensive too, so $68 for a Wine Check can be cheaper than a shipping a case of wine ground to the East Coast.
How does the 3rd party shipping from K&L work? Do they just hook you up with a shipper besides FedEx or UPS? I have seen so many deals at K&L that I wanted to grab, but they don’t ship to NJ…
Generally speaking, third party shippers 1. Do not sell alcoholic beverages and do not possess a liquor license 2. Ship property for the “owner” of the wine, or other items purchased, (you) 3. Do not involve themselves with compliance rules of other states which are primarily for wineries and retailers. 4. Usually follow those rules for marking the package as alcoholic beverage and adult signature required. AND the third party shipper may use UPS, FedEx, GSO or other delivery service specific to the area the package is being shipped.
Louisiana was recently opened up for shipping but not in clear language that retailers may ship there without collecting taxes for Louisiana. K&L may just be keeping it simple and avoid government entanglements. With the amount of shipping they do now, they probably have as much as they handle already.
Retailers can technically ship to 4 or 5 reciprocal states and a total of 12 states if compliance requirements are met. Here they are:
Alaska
California
District of Columbia
Hawaii
Idaho
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
Wyoming
Like it or not, distributors are pushing every state to shut down shipping so they will have total control of distribution and pricing. Tom Wark and Free the Grapes have busted butt to change this but distributors have more money to donate to politicians than retailers. If I don’t miss my guess, you will all be buying from your local government liquor store by 2025. Those 9 states that you already buy from their local government liquor store will become the proof it works to protect the children, the state and provide adequate wine choices.