With liquor stores closed, April online booze sales spike in Pennsylvania

Southeastern Pennsylvania wine and spirits buyers are still limited to phone and online orders as the shutdown of the area’s Fine Wine and Good Spirits stores for walk-in customers approaches eight weeks.

The closures ordered by Gov. Tom Wolf have meant slashed Liquor Control Board revenue after record-setting buying in stores days before the March 18 shutdown.

April’s sales totaled $84.7 million — less than half of the monthly revenue year over year. Despite the shutdown, March sales totaled about $198 million, a fairly typical month. Customers hankered most for sweet wines, Fireball shots, and assorted vodkas.

The LCB’s online system — which was halted March 16 and returned April 1, only to become overwhelmed — accounted for about $10.3 million of the April sales, a dramatic rise from the $590,000 in e-commerce in March.

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Through April, the LCB increased the number of e-commerce fulfillment centers from one to more than 120, a spokesperson said, adding that since April 1, the state had processed four times the online orders received in an entire year. Purchasers were limited to six bottles per online transaction.

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In part to help ease the load on the online system, the state on April 20 started a decidedly low-tech phone system: Call a Premium Collection store between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., give your order to a clerk, pay by credit card, and arrange a time for curbside pickup. In the first four days of curbside pickup, the LCB said, it brought in $3.64 million on more than 38,000 orders.

On May 8, the state reopened 77 stores with limited in-store public access in counties designated in the “yellow” phase of COVID-19 mitigation efforts. There is a 12-bottle limit for curbside pickup orders.