Buying alcohol in the United States seems relatively easy. Go to store, purchase bottle, or go to website, add bottle to cart.
But behind the scenes, it’s kind of a nightmare. There are 50 different rulebooks for 50 states, which you can blame on the lingering effects of Prohibition (yes, more than a century later) and the resulting three-tier regulatory structure (dividing booze regulation by suppliers, distributors and retailers). Just because it looks easy on the front end doesn’t mean there aren’t serious challenges on the back end.
That’s where Vista Fulfillment Group comes in. Vista has been fueling much of today’s alcohol e-commerce infrastructure for more than two decades. As they note, the company (using a proprietary system) does everything from powering the “Buy Now” buttons you’ll find on a shopping site (or a brand’s site) to managing compliance across nearly every state, shipping hundreds of thousands of bottles a year and supporting retailers with bookkeeping, tracking orders and tax-filing software. They also offer booze storage, packing, shipping and custom packaging/gift bags and provide alcohol brands with insights on sales and customer behavior.
Basically, there’s A LOT that has to happen for a bottle to land on your doorstep. So we spoke with Firas Soro, the president of Vista Fulfillment, about navigating the often confusing, ever-shifting boozy marketplace. At the very least, you may be even a little more grateful the next time you order your favorite whiskey online.
What Is Vista Fulfillment?
I asked Soro for the “30-second description you’d give at a cocktail party,” and he did me one better. “We’re like the Amazon of alcohol,” he says. “We are the largest fulfillment group for liquor stores, brands, any marketplace, anybody who wants to sell alcohol online. We’re the back end.”
How Does Vista Help Liquor Stores?
Basically, with whatever they need. “Some liquor stores have their own websites and ship things themselves,” Soro says. “But some are like, ‘We’ll hand it off to you. You ship it for us. It’s too many logistics and inventory.’ That way, they can focus on running their store day-to-day.”
You’ve Purchased a Bottle of Booze Online. What’s Next?
For Soro’s company, it’s about getting that alcohol to you compliantly with all the complex and different rules without you noticing. “Brands can’t legally sell products,” he says. “So when you go on the brand’s website and think you’re actually purchasing alcohol from them, you’re not. Behind the scenes is our technology that links the consumer to the appropriate warehouse, and that warehouse has the license to transact the purchase and get the bottle shipped to the consumer without them ever knowing any different.”
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It’s a good list! Soro thinks he has about 500 different clients, including up-and-coming brands like Brother’s Bond, Au Vodka, Garrison Brothers and Shortbarrel, a whiskey brand out of Atlanta. “Vista has fundamentally changed how we execute DTC, giving us the infrastructure to scale nationally without sacrificing speed or customer experience,” says Clinton Dugan, co-founder and master blender of Shortbarrel. “What used to be operational friction is now a competitive advantage, allowing us to focus on building demand while knowing fulfillment is dialed in.”
Vista also works with about four dozen marketplaces, including ReserveBar and Flaviar, along with stores like Top Shelf.
How the Current, Slightly Depressed Alcohol Market Is Affecting Vista
Actually, it’s not. “We have more brands coming online because they’re trying to find a new channel for sales because traditional business is down,” Soro says. “If you look at us, most of our clients are not your big traditional brands. These are brands that don’t have enough money to go to every state in this country and get in every liquor store.”
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