The Boston Globe reports that the Somerville startup Drync is making it possible to order wine (a bottle or a case) through its mobile app and pick it up at a local retailer. On Jan. 1, it becomes legal in Massachusetts for wineries to ship their products directly to your doorstep.
Drync founder and chief executive Brad Rosen said that current options for direct-to-consumer shipping of wine are onerous: It can be expensive, and someone 21-or-older often needs to be home to sign for the shipment. Through the app, it’s now possible to order any of Drync’s 30,000 wines on offer and pick them up at one of eight Boston-area retailers.
“We call it the infinite shelf,” Rosen said to the Globe. “If the wine you want is in the state somewhere, our retailers get it from their wholesalers.” The bottles will be available for pickup between one and four days after the order is placed.
Retailers will pay Drync a monthly fee, and a marketing fee on each sale, in order to participate in the pickup program. Big retailers such as Costco are rapidly outselling independent wine retailers, Rosen said. “These smaller shops are desperate for ways to drive traffic and create loyalty, and they’re willing to pay for it.”
The company’s vision is to have an expansive network of retailers who will eventually be able to sign up to participate online. Rosen told the Globe that a survey his company conducted this fall found that online wine buyers order 50 percent more bottles per month than offline buyers, and are twice as likely to spend $30 or more per bottle.
A new version of the Drync app, released on Thursday, also lets you “follow” other users to see what wines they like, or spy on what vintages your friends have been swilling. In November, Drync became the first wine app to support Apple Pay, which lets users pay with a single tap, using a credit card on file.
