I could see Amazon selling wine. In fact, a couple months ago I did a search for wine at Amazon, just on a whim, and was surprised they didn't offer any. The arcane rules of state to state wine sales must be part of the problem.
Amazon.com Inc. may be adding wine as another product it sells as the Internet retailer looks to recruit a wine buyer and enter a market complicated by interstate-wine-shipping laws.
The Seattle company posted a job advertisement for a senior wine buyer to build relationships with wine vendors and add product selection to its shopping site. The posting was reported by the Financial Times. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.
Amazon doesn't sell wine on its site now, but it's not for lack of trying. It invested $30 million in 1999 for a 45% stake in start-up Wineshopper.com, which later failed. Wine.com sells gift baskets of food on Amazon's site but not wine. Amazon would have to deal with a complex set of rules for shipping wine in certain state
[From Amazon Wine-Buyer Posting Has Subtle Hints of Product Expansion - WSJ.com]
If Amazon does this correctly, I'd see myself purchasing wine from their store, as opposed to from Wine.com. Wine.com is ok, but I'll forever be suspicious of their wares since the last time I ordered from them, a bottle came destroyed. It wasn't destroyed in transit, it was damaged before it ever got shipped, and someone should have noticed. Wine.com did send me a replacement bottle, but it was a three week process.
The real question is, will Amazon make wine suggestions based on prior book purchases? What books would pair with what wine?
-- I'm not the only to make such a (weak) joke. Doh!
