COVID-19 and craft beer: Alcohol delivery sales skyrocketed overnight

Even social distancing requires a social lubricant. With states across the country closing bars and restaurants (many of them launching their own makeshift delivery or curbside sales concepts), alcohol e-commerce platform Drizly reports a significant increase in sales.

Drizly works with retail partners in over 180 market across the U.S. to bring on-demand at-home delivery of beer, wine and spirits to consumers’ doorsteps in under 60 minutes. 

Alcohol delivery stats thus far

• Latest week trends showed Drizly sales growing 2x the growth rate from earlier in the year. The latest 4 days show Drizly is growing 3.5x the growth rate from earlier in the year.
• As customers are stocking up, they are spending on average 30% more than normal on Drizly.
• Recent trends show that while growth in all categories has accelerated compared to earlier in the year, wine/liquor is now growing 2x as fast than beer.
• Almost every store in Drizly the network, across 180 markets, remains open and its retail partners are working day and night to satisfy the massive influx of orders.

But deliveries still mean social contact!

So, like breweries that are still trying to stay open, Drizly has instituted its own measures to keep everyone as safe as they can. From their website:

Outside deliveries. We encourage you and your driver to designate a spot outside your house/building to complete the delivery. Feel free to put specific requests in the notes section during checkout. We’ve encouraged our partners to contact you for instructions before the delivery. Please note that for legal and other safety reasons, deliveries do still need to be made in person and to a residential or corporate address.

Contactless ID scanning: While you will still need to present your ID, we’ve encouraged drivers to scan your ID without touching it. Please simply hold up your ID for your driver to scan.

Eliminating customer signatures: We have requested that our retail partners forego the need for you to sign the driver’s device. Note that we are working with our partners to implement this change and that decisions to require or not require signatures may still be made at the retailer level. Some drivers may ask you to bring a pen and sign a paper receipt. Please have patience with your driver as we work to make this change as quickly as possible.