 |
|
|
|||||
In the early days of the internet, collectors traded rare whiskey and wine on eBay alongside Beanie Babies and vintage sneakers. But then, in 1999, six months after closing down firearm sales, eBay announced they would ban the sale of alcohol and tobacco products as well. “As a general rule, these laws are just so complex and contradictory, that we just decided that in the best interest of our users to prevent that situation from ever occurring,” then-spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. More than 25 years later and almost a century after the end of Prohibition, the regulatory environment is no less forgiving, and the resale of spirits online has been scattered across niche forums, gray-market Facebook groups, and high-end houses like Christies, Sothebys and Bonhams. The patchwork of U.S. liquor laws Domestic laws are complex. Six states still ban retail spirits sales on Sundays, to start. Seventeen operate as control states with a government monopoly on liquor sales. And while 47 states allow wineries to ship directly to consumers, only 11 extend that same privilege to distillers, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Industry groups have shepherded a bill into Congress that would give the USPS authority to mail alcoholic beverages, but a final vote could take years. Few competitors have cracked this market. BAXUS uses blockchain for tokenized bottle trading, while U.K.-based Whisky.auction, Whisky Auctioneer, and Whisky Hammer focus outside the U.S. Good Bottle Auctions, based in Connecticut, sticks to the Northeast with in-person delivery. But since launching in 2020, a company called Unicorn has expanded to serve the continental U.S., logging over six million bids across half a million lots, totaling $125 million in sales. Its Chicago vault holds more than $100 million in inventory, with weekly and monthly auctions that ship purchases to pickup locations nationwide. Sothebys vs. Unicorn CEO Phil Mikhaylov, who previously worked at UberEats and delivery startup GoPuff, frames Unicorns speed and scale as a direct extension of that background. He says that most legacy auction houses top out at a few hundred lots per week, while Unicorn regularly clears thousands. I think what you see at other auction housessay, a Sothebysis they might have roughly 300 lots in an auction every single week. We’re doing, on a bad week, 3000 lots. On average, we’re doing 4000 to 5000 a week, Mikhaylov says. Unicorn CEO Phil Mikhaylov [Photo: Unicorn] Sothebys, for the record, did $114 million in spirits and wine sales in 2024a slump from their record of $159 million the year before. At this point, we sell $12 million of whiskey per week, Mikhaylov said in an interview earlier this year with their newly acquired (and renamed) in-house magazine, the Unicorn Review. Whats happened is that weve become effectively a redistribution platform. A bottle thats selling for $50 in Chicago might have $200 of value to someone in New Mexico. Unicorn has spent yearsand millions of dollarsbuilding the framework to do so. As of 2025, they have 12 dropoff points across the country, which then link out to a handful of vans that drive across the region, all eventually relaying bottles back to their Chicago processing facility. Sellers can hand off their bottles, and buyers can drive out to any of the facilities, or go through Unicorn for delivery. For legal reasons, Unicorn (a licensed retailer) must take possession of every bottle and bring it to its central Chicago location. There, an authentication and appraisal team runs each one through what may be the most robust spirits-resale database in the industry, producing estimates that cover everything from a 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux to a jug of Jose Cuervo. I tested the system by submitting four bottles for appraisal online. The sheet broke down batch numbers, year, and proof, and offered estimates within a few dollars of their eventual sale price. After handing the bottles off the next week in-person, they were on auction by Sunday: one sold $5 below estimate, another $5 above, and the other two squarely within range. Mikhaylov credits the accuracy to their in-house tracking software and the size of their data set. A data-driven bar cart Digitizing that many bottles was slow at first, but after five years (and some AI integration), the system has basically been perfected. Bottles are scanned, authenticated, photographed in 360 degrees, and logged into the vault. Customers using Unicorn for storage pay 25 cents per bottle per month and can check their inventory online at any time. [Photo: Unicorn] Storage complements sales: Mikhaylov says that many collectors were looking for a solution to manage their treasure troves, often resorting to home-brewed spreadsheets and lists. Now, whales might have their entire collection picked up, palletized, digitized, and tracked onlineready for observation, admiration, or sale at auction. If they do decide to sell, payouts are delivered in 10 days or less, minus $5 per bottle and 5% commission (buyers pay a 15% premium). Compared to traditional auction houses, which often require weeks or even over a month to process consignments and payout sellers, thats fast. The idea began during the pandemic. Mikhaylovs cofounder, Cody Modeer, found himself unable to auction bottles from his shuttered bar; traditional houses dismised his inventory as too low-value. Meanwhile, Mikhaylov was searching for a way to digitize and manage spirits collections, allowing collectors to drop off bottles anywhere in the country and track them remotely. There wasnt a modern platform that was meeting the demands of today’s consumer: something that made it easy to drop off, to sell, or to manage a collection, Mikhaylov says. This is meeting the demands of that consumer. 70% of our clientele that signed up this year have been Gen Z and millennial. For the younger demographic, its all about transparency and speed . . . Think of us like Kelly Blue Book, but for your bar cart.
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. stocks are coasting toward the finish of Wall Streets latest winning month on Tuesday. The S&P 500 fell 0.2% in afternoon trading but remains on track for a fifth straight winning month after setting a record last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 145 points, or 0.3%, as of 1:43 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower. Oil-related companies weighed on the market after the price of crude fell again as traders see too much oil washing around the world. Schlumberger fell 3.8%, and Halliburton dropped 3%. They helped offset a 12.7% jump for CoreWeave, which said Meta Platforms will pay up to $14.2 billion for a new order for cloud computing power made under its existing service agreement, with the potential for more. Treasury yields eased in the bond market following a couple mixed reports on the U.S. economy. One said consumers are feeling less confident than economists expected, with many respondents in the Conference Board’s survey pointing to the slowing job market and inflation that has remained higher than anyone would like. A second report suggested the job market may be remaining in its low-hire, low-fire state. U.S. employers were advertising roughly the same number of job openings at the end of August as the month before. The hope on Wall Street had been for a number that’s neither too high nor too low, one balanced enough to keep the Federal Reserve on track to continue cutting interest rates. The Fed just delivered its first cut of the year, and officials have penciled in more through the end of next year to give the job market a boost. If data on jobs come in too strong, it could make the Fed less willing to cut rates. If the numbers are too weak, meanwhile, they could mean a recession is coming. Either extreme would hurt the stock market, which has run to records from a low in April in large part on expectations that the Fed will cut rates several times. The stock market is already facing heavy criticism for being too expensive after prices ran so high. Another potential wild card is hanging over the market, meanwhile. The U.S. government seems to be heading toward a shutdown at the end of the day following another political impasse in Washington. The economy and stock market have made it through past shutdowns without much wear, and many economists and professional investors feel relatively OK about another one. The S&P 500 has climbed an average of 4.4% during past shutdowns and is positive over the last five, according to Monica Guerra, head of U.S. policy at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. The timing of this potential shutdown, though, would likely cause delays for several important economic reports. That includes a release due on Friday about how many jobs U.S. employers created and destroyed in September. That could make Wall Street twitchier when investors are already nervous about the state of the economy and what that means for the potential for cuts to rates. The Department of Labor has already said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will completely cease operations if theres a lapse. On Wall Street, Spotify Technology sank 6.4% after the Stockholm-based streaming giant said its founder, Daniel Ek, is stepping down as CEO to become the executive chairman. Two of his lieutenants will replace him as co-CEOs: Chief Product and Technology Officer Gustav Söderström and Chief Business Officer Alex Norström. Lamb Weston jumped 4.1% after the supplier of frozen French fries and other potato products reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. In stock markets abroad, indexes ticked higher in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.14% from 4.15% late Monday. Stan Choe, AP business writer AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. consumer confidence declined again in September as Americans pessimism over inflation and the weakening job market continued to grow. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell by 3.6 points to 94.2 in September, down from Augusts 97.8. Thats a bigger drop than analysts were expecting and the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff policy. A measure of Americans short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market fell to 73.4, remaining well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. Consumers assessments of their current economic situation dipped by 7 points to 125.4. Write-in responses to the survey showed that references to prices and inflation rose this month, regaining its top position as consumers main concern about the economy. Mentions of tariffs declined this month but remain elevated, the Conference Board said. Government data released earlier this month showed that inflation rose in August as the price of gas, groceries, and airfares jumped. Consumer prices increased 2.9% last month from a year earlier, the Labor Department said, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest jump since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July. While unemployment and layoffs remain historically low, there has been noticeable deterioration in the labor market this year and mounting evidence that people are having difficulty finding jobs. Earlier this month, the government reported that U.S. nonfarm employers added a paltry 22,000 jobs in August, following Julys disappointing 79,000 job gains. Worse, revisions to the May and June figures shaved 258,000 jobs off previous estimates. The unemployment rate stands at 4.3%, the highest since October 2021. Also Tuesday, the Labor Department reported that U.S. job openings in August remained at 7.2 million, about the same as the previous month. In addition to the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserves inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023, economists say the recent hiring slump may also be a result of Trumps policies, including his sweeping and ever-changing tariffs on imports, a crackdown on illegal immigration and purges of the federal workforce. Many companies are locked in a no hire, no fire position, fearful of expanding payrolls until the effects of Trumps tariffs are more clear. More jobs data comes Friday when the government releases its September labor market data, with analysts forecasting 50,000 job gains. However, that report could be postponed if a budget impasse in Congress leads to a government shutdown Wednesday. The share of consumers expecting a recession over the next year rose modestly in September to the highest level since May. Survey respondents who said they intended to buy a new or used car in the near future fell, while the share of those saying they planned to purchase a home rose to a four-month high. Those saying they planned to buy big-ticket items like appliances were little changed from August with big variations across categories. Matt Ott, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||