Guide to Online Wine Shopping

Yes, Internet shopping has improved and is far more secure than it was years ago, however, being cautious is important. Do your research before you click the 'complete your purchase' icon. To be more precise, it is important to find a reliable and trustworthy online wine shop that not only guarantees genuine wine brands and high quality, but also offers 24/7 customer support hotline and acceptable shipping and return policy.

Phantom inventory – This is the score of many wine sites. It is amazing how some wine shops list wines that perhaps, maybe, possibly might be at some warehouse. When you order a wine from online wine shop there are always big chances to find out that the wine you want to order is not available. We aren't thinking about future, but about wines that appear to be in stock today. People are shopping online for many different products, and there is no another commodity or industry where this is a consistent problem.

Slow delivery – Sometimes, this is related to the phantom inventory problem because online wine shop may be waiting to see if they can get the wine from warehouse, distribution or another store location. Very often it takes more than a week for the wine you purchased to leave the store. This issue will leave online wine shopping only to serious collectors and wine geeks, and the fact is they are not enough to support a whole online wine industry.

Cluttered sites – Some wine web sites that used to be pleasant now have too much stuff on their homepages - chats, videos, Scotch, so you do not know from where to start. It is like a wine sore that once was nice to visit where its owner never could stop buying new wine bottles and now there are boxes everywhere.

Clear shipping polices – Find out in what states the online wine shop you select can ship to. Unbelievable, but some wine stores have this information now on their site and you can find out this only when they call you or email you after you make an or in worst case, when you contact them after your bottle of wine never arrived.

Who runs the site and where – Maybe you think this is a simple thing, but the fact is that there are so many online wine sites that do not have a clue where their actual store is located and where they are based. When you decide to spend money and purchase wine from online wine shop, you certainly want to know who is getting your credit card number.