K&L No Longer Shipping to Washington State

Just found out that as of this past Monday K&L will no longer ship to WA. I really wanted that 19 Lapierre. Damn.

Tom

Weird. I wonder why. Seems to me there has long been pretty easy shipping between California and Washington. Must be more economics-based than anything having to do with restrictions or shipping laws I would think.

They seem to be shipping to less and less places nowadays. Don’t think the WA move was one due to any regulatory restrictions, but rather an economic one as Brandon noticed.

That’s surprising. Also, now I want some 19 Lapierre.

I’ve noticed that as well-wonder what’s the reasoning behind this.

Here’s my working theory:
The big hit to K&L came when they stopped being able to ship to many of the East Coast states. Eventually some of that East Coast clientele continued to purchase from them and route their purchases through other third parties like Domaine. After adjusting to that, they eventually they realised that there’s a bunch of compliance costs to be able to ship to a wide variety of states and made a more concerted effort to focus on the states where the have a large client base and lower barriers to ship drop the smaller volume or more troublesome states

Yeah, I was gonna jump on the 19 Bedrock Sonoma SBs that are on closeout for $17, only to discover they won’t ship here as of this week. Their customer service was as responsive as always, but didn’t provide any explanation. Just confirmed that they no longer ship up here and that they have no other info on it. Sad to lose them as a retail source, but I suppose it just means more of my money will go to local shops.

It was always weird to me that they only shipped via GSO/GLS and not FedEx, UPS etc but I never minded as I’ve always had good experiences with GSO (I’m in the minority there, I know). I guess it wasn’t worth the hassle to them anymore.

Yet somehow their auction prices are generally high, sometimes absurdly so, when compared to retail or recent auction pricing. I guess there is plenty splashing around CA.

They stopped shipping to Arizona as well. What changed?

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I think Washington allows out of state wineries to ship to consumers, but not out of state retailers. Maybe they stepped up enforcement?

-Al

Must be an economic/business issue since they quit shipping to Nevada via UPS a couple of years ago, but still (at least through December 2020) ship to me via FedEx? Cheers!

The onlyretialer I found so far shipping to Virginia sent me s9e bourbon. Probably on the down low. But I’m close enough to DC to ship there. They essentially have no shipping laws.

Tired to buy some Armagnac last week from them and they will only ship spirits within CA. They have a great selection, too bad it has been limited.

Al, that’s what I think too. But there are plenty of retailers who will ship here, so I suspect this was an economic decision that finally tipped to ‘not worth the hassle/risk’

Sorry to hear that since I’ve purchased from them in the past. Does anybody know if they still ship to Oregon?

LA Wine Co, Kermit Lynch and Woodland Hills have all shipped to me in WA in the past month.

Tom

Their local delivery (I think they do some themselves, but are way beyond capability with the covid thing) is a FedEx service, I believe. Who offers the best price and quality of service varies greatly by region. We see every shipper praised as the best and condemned as the worst. That can be due to a regional manager or individual employee. GSO started as a stellar service, out-competing the competition, and remains so n many regions, but it seems they had trouble expanding into others.

K&L seems to be thriving. I could understand them getting to the point where shipping to certain places that devastate their margins, for whatever reasons, just isn’t worth it. Doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.

Possibly, but I’d be surprised. They apparently still ship to Idaho and Wyoming which seem unlikely to be large markets.

-Al

All my local deliveries have been a person in what appears to be their own cars, no UPS, FedEx, etc…

The local delivery option if awesome since you can hold wine until you get to the threshold for free delivery and schedule online.

Just got a box today, so unless they’ve changed it this week the answer is “Yes!”