Q&A
Any advice you could give on starting online beverage business?
We are looking into starting online business in healthy drinks. Are there brands/manufacturers that consider drop shipping? Any other advise you could give on starting online business in this industry?
In general, it is a very early stage for beverage ecommerce in Europe. The main problem is logistic cost. Until it is not fully solved – beverage industry is stuck in the middle ages. Due to this fact, I would be very careful with beverage ecommerce. For the moment, it is only as an extra sales channel.
Beverage co-packers are not accustomed to drop shipping. I believe there is no economic logic for them to start this as an additional activity. Co-packers are interested in the production of bigger quantities and selling them at once. However, as an alternative you can use order fulfillment companies for that.
To sum up, I believe that now online sales can be as an extra sales channel for beverage brands. Eventually it will grow bigger, however, on-trade/off-trade is still king of the town.