Fine Wine & Good Spirits losing $6.5 million a day, restarts online sales

Record sales on the eve of Gov. Tom Wolf’s temporary closure of state-run wine and liquor stores won’t be enough to offset growing losses — which threaten to end a two-decade streak of new revenue highs, a Tribune-Review analysis shows.

Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores shuttered two weeks ago, at 9 p.m. March 17, in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus that causes covid-19. Since then, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has lost an estimated $91 million.

Should the stores remain closed through April — after Wolf on Monday extended the closure of non-life-sustaining businesses indefinitely — the board could lose another $200 million, if 2019 figures are any indication. State stores last April saw $198 million in sales, the latest annual report shows.

The mounting financial losses come after years of record-breaking sales, PLCB spokeswoman Elizabeth Brassell said.

Sales last year reached $2.67 billion, which broke the record set in fiscal year 2017-18 by $75 million.

Allegheny County ranked No. 1 in sales last year, bringing in nearly $310 million. Westmoreland ranked No. 9, with almost $66 million in sales. No other counties in Western Pennsylvania cracked the Top 10.

Now, the state is losing about $6.5 million in sales each day the stores are closed, according to a Tribune-Review analysis of daily average sales for the first 70 days of 2020 — a time before coronavirus restrictions were put in place. Over the same in 2019, state stores averaged daily sales of $6.2 million, records show.

The PLCB implemented one option Wednesday afternoon to buffer some of that loss.

Online sales were once again being accepted at finewineandgoodspirits.com — a move that lasted only a couple of hours before “overwhelming demand” made the website inaccessible to most users.

Officials anticipated that demand would exceed the capability of the system and its limited number of employees, so the sales web page has been set up to “randomize” access — which could require some patience and repeatedly refreshing browsers in coming days.

“Please try again tomorrow or in the coming days,” a message on the site read.

“We have opened up online sales,” Gov. Wolf says of liquor sales in Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/4kVhUtQaqe

— Megan Guza (@meganguzaTrib) April 1, 2020

For those able to log on, customers can purchase up to six bottles per transaction from a limited catalog of about 1,000 wines and spirits. All orders must be shipped to a home or non-store address. Only one order per address will be fulfilled per day.

Access to the website will continue to be randomized to avoid high traffic on the site and order abuse, “so that order availability isn’t exhausted in seconds or minutes each day,” PLCB said.

“We expect consumer interest and site traffic to exceed what we’ll be able to fulfill, at least initially, so we ask that customers be patient and understand that the PLCB is doing the best it can under extraordinary circumstances to balance consumer demand and public health,” PLCB Chairman Tim Holden said in a statement.

PLCB facilities fulfilling orders are being sanitized and workers are practicing social distancing with a limited number of employees. As order fulfillment capacity increases, PLCB officials will consider increasing the number of orders it takes each day.

Online sales during the last fiscal year accounted for about $5 million, though Brassell noted those sales “as a percentage of overall sales have been growing exponentially over the last year” due to a larger fulfillment center and a focus on online promotions and marketing.

In the days leading up to the closure of the PLCB’s 598 commercial locations and 13 licensee service centers, a frantic buying spree further padded a record-setting sales pace. Since July 1, the first day of the 2019-20 fiscal year, state store sales had been around $140 million ahead of last year.

That was buoyed in large part by the highest single-day sales in at least a decade on March 16, when the PLCB recorded $29.9 million in sales (smashing the previous record of $25.7 million set in December 2016). More than $20.3 million in sales poured in the following day, St. Patrick’s Day, the last day stores were open. Those two days combined were about $38 million more than the same dates in 2019, PLCB records show.

But, while Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores sit dark, customers still have options. Beer distributors in Pennsylvania remain open, as do retail stores that sell beer and wine, such as Sheetz and Giant Eagle. Liquor stores in nearby Ohio and West Virginia also are open.

PLCB officials said they are in contact with the state Department of Health and the governor’s office to ensure they can reopen stores when it is safe to do so.

“We did not take this decision lightly, but it is critical that we all do our part to mitigate the impact of covid-19,” the PLCB’s website reads. “In these uncertain and unprecedented times, the public health crisis must take priority over the sale of wine and spirits, as the health and safety of our employees and communities is paramount.”