It’s Friday, and you just got smoked by your Marketing final. You’re running late for your section’s holiday party and decide to run to the nearest corner store for a bottle of wine. There’s only one problem: you go to HBS and live on\u00a0the retail wasteland that is campus.<\/p>\n
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Enter Drizly. A few quick taps on your smartphone will have your drink of choice at your doorstep within the hour.\u00a0You breathe a sigh of relief; technology for the win; Christmas has been saved.<\/p>\n
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But wait. You’re a smart, analytical person – you (sort of) learned something at business school. How does a startup handle\u00a0such a high number of SKUs (more than 2,000<\/a> in some markets)? How does\u00a0it deliver in such a quick amount of time (20-40<\/a> min)? How did millennials succeed at delivering alcohol – a historically insurmountable problem so closely tied to the American way of life that it birthed the most American of all sports? (Not baseball.\u00a0NASCAR<\/a>, you guys).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In short: they didn’t. Er, it doesn’t. They and it does…not. Whatever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drizly’s Business Model<\/strong><\/p>\n Drizly provide’s on-demand delivery of beer, wine, spirits, and mixers. Essentially, the company exists to connect local liquor stores with near-by buyers. The business creates value <\/a>by saving customers the time and hassle of procuring alcohol in person. Drizly charges no mark-up over in-store prices, but creates\u00a0value for retail partners in the form of increased sales and increased customer base. In their own words, Drizly<\/a> offers “speed, convenience, selection, and price.”\u00a0The company captures value by charging liquor stores a monthly licensing fee to participate in the network.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “That’s interesting,” you think. “But why is this any different from the myriad mobile startups I can’t keep up with?” The reason goes back to NASCAR. Alcohol regulation in the U.S. is cumbersome<\/a>.\u00a0In 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed, bringing an end to Prohibition. In order to protect against the abuses of “tied-houses,” the “three-tier system<\/a>” of brewers, independent distributors, and retailers was developed. Additionally, some states developed their own regulations (Oregon<\/a> and North Carolina enjoy state-run liquor stores; Colorado<\/a> and New York prohibit companies from owning more than one liquor store at a time).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (*Yawn* “Enough with the history.”) Why does that matter? Delivering alcohol has basically been impossible. Even if a company developed a system that worked in one state and didn’t ruffle too many regulatory feathers, chances are the same system wouldn’t work one state over. So how did Drizly do it?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drizly’s\u00a0Operating Model\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n As mentioned, Drizly<\/a> connects buyers and sellers of alcohol. They don’t mark up the prices (point: consumers), and they bring a lot more business to their retail partners (point: liquor stores) (One liquor store owner \/ Drizly delivery woman the author spoke with estimated Drizly-specific monthly revenue to be $50,000). But the salient point is that Drizly doesn’t touch a single bottle of booze nor a single cent of the transaction<\/em>. They succeed in bypassing the three-tier system by simply not being a part of it. (However, Drizly makes it a point<\/a> to maintain very good relations with the existing regulator system).\u00a0Drizly sends the order to a local liquor store, then lets the buyer and seller handle the rest. This means no inventory, no liquor license, no drivers, and most notably: no booze.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drizly does take multiple steps to make the process as simple as possible (and differentiate themselves from the competition). They provide liquor stores with “proprietary<\/a> ID scanners” that “scan more than just a barcode” (no one’s sure what that means. The point is liquor stores are given additional information to enable them to make responsible delivery decisions). As a first-mover, Drizly enjoys the lion’s share of users and liquor stores. This ensures the benefits of network effect for the retailers. While customers may be indifferent to which app they use, retailers will be sure to partner with whichever company boasts the most users.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You do you, Amazon<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to a few copycat<\/a> startups (Saucey, Thirstie, Minibar, Swill, BrewDop), Drizly faces competition from Amazon. After recently acquiring three liquor licenses for the Seattle area, it seems alcohol delivery will be part of Amazon’s forthcoming grocery service. While the presence of such a large online retailer must make Drizly a little nervous, Amazon won’t be able to make it in the booze delivery arena. Amazon will use it’s current operating model focused on warehousing to try and compete with Drizly. But as was described above, there are (and have always been) significant issues with delivering alcohol on your own. Amazon won’t be able to deliver in Oregon and North Carolina, and will only be able to operate a single facility in Colorado and New York (say goodbye to the 1 hour delivery guarantee). Drizly’z operating model allows it to flow seamlessly across state boundaries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Disrupt the Disruption<\/strong><\/p>\n Much like “counterinsurgency doctrine” in Security Studies, the term “disruption” gets thrown around so flippantly that no one remembers what it means, and everyone assumes its good<\/a>. Given that Drizly operates most often as a mobile app and the company doesn’t actually do what it helps you to do (i.e. it’s Uber), it’s easy to assume Drizly is “disrupting the alcohol industry!!!”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s not. And if it was, the young startup would not be able to have such a cozy relationship<\/a> with the established three-tiers. Amazon’s approach to the alcohol delivery problem (cutting out distributors), would be disruptive (if it worked). Wine & Spirit Wholesalers’ President Craig Wolf<\/a>\u00a0(i.e., the guy a small startup doesn’t want to tick off) defended Drizly, saying “Drizly’s business model [is] three-tier compliant and not disruptive but complementary.” This is because the app protects wholesalers’ (and retailers’ ) positions in the three-tier system.\u00a0In fact, the\u00a0Wine &\u00a0Spirit Wholesalers are so open to the company, they acquired a minority stake in Drizly last May.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drizly does what Burt Reynolds couldn’t (and what Amazon can’t). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":2383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[458,459,336,7],"class_list":["post-2382","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drizly","category-on-demand-uncategorized","category-tom-winners","category-winner"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/the-tom-challenge-tom-winners-and-losers-assignment\/","yoast_head":"\n