I've kind of moved on from woot in general of late. It seemed like they had more Amazon-like merchandise and without Prime, you had to pay shipping on everything. As to wine, they required a signature so it meant hanging at home until the UPS dude arrived.
Jim
No need to wait at home. You can have the package delivered to a FedEx shipment center near your house, and pick it up anytime when they're open (within five business days after delivery). I do that quite often with wine shipments.
My understanding is the Wine.woot is a casualty of the Whole Foods acquisition. In many states, liquor distribution laws make clear distinctions between producers, distributors, and sellers of alcoholic beverages. Because local liquor laws are often heavily influenced by in-state liquor distributors, many states have onerous requirements to operate as a distributor from out-of-state. They are also structured to make it extremely difficult, if not outright illegal, for sellers to acquire alcoholic beverages without going through a distributor.
Whole Foods sells wine, which it obtains from distributors. By owning and operating wine.woot, Amazon was now in a position of being both a representative of wineries, as well as a seller. This set up signficant legal issues, so Amazon is pulling the plug on Wine.woot.
*********
The good news is that Wine Country Connect, the company that is the engine behind wine.woot, is going to resurrect the operation under a new tent after wine.woot shuts down. So it probably won't go away, and it will be free of Amazon.
