DTC at scale: How global wine and spirits brands can win with direct-to-consumer retail

As the wine and spirits industry deals with a challenging global environment, including declining alcohol consumption among younger consumers in key markets, some of the biggest brand owners are overhauling how they sell their products. 

To that end, the international conglomerates behind the most recognisable premium spirits, wines and champagnes are building direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce channels to ensure they can:

This approach is paying off. In Singapore, for instance, Pernod Ricard’s Private Client Society “Le Cercle” – which targets high-net worth individuals – saw DTC sales climb more than half in the six months to end-2025. Zooming out, the global market for DTC sales across all categories (including fashion, beauty and home goods) is expected to reach US$880bn by 2034, nearly four times the US$225bn recorded in 2024. 

That shows consumers are more interested than ever in buying directly from brands, which are keen to sell through this new channel. 

However, although DTC sales tick brands’ key boxes, doing this successfully requires a responsive e-commerce channel, says Guillaume Mullier, Global Account Director at FM Logistic – and building one, he warns, is no easy task. Brands must completely rewire their traditional supply chains, because shipping units or small parcels this way is a wholly different logistical operation compared to shipping pallets to retailers and wholesalers.

Additionally, says Mullier, selling alcohol – particularly across national or even state borders – brings an array of regulatory, compliance, customs and excise challenges that generic e-fulfilment players cannot navigate. 

“In the general FMCG sector, the main criteria players look at is the cost to sell. But in the alcohol sector, if you are only looking at the cost to sell, you will miss the compliance part,” he says. “And one risk of not being compliant is losing the possibility to sell your product in a given market – so we drive clients towards operational excellence while keeping the compliance of their operations secure.”

In short, success requires using specialised logistics infrastructure that can marry high-velocity parcel fulfilment with flawless regulatory compliance.

Until recently, major alcohol brands relied on full truckloads as their primary logistics solution. Warehouses would load pallets of a single, identical product and distribute those to regional wholesalers, hospitality chains or large retailers.

The DTC e-commerce model looks nothing like this: It requires a dedicated e-fulfilment operation specifically designed for high-volume unit picking and sufficiently agile to cope with seasonal demand peaks and troughs.

Recent years have brought an additional layer of complexity: As brands have sought to capture different demographics, they have launched countless product variations including limited edition bottles, branded merchandise like t-shirts, table mats and umbrellas, and alternative formats like ready-to-drink cans. An extra consideration, says Mullier, concerns premium products. 

“So, in the case of one of our clients, they have three different web portals – one for VIP customers with a portfolio containing high-value products, and who might expect a white-glove delivery service; another for employees worldwide, and their friends and families; and a general portal for people who want to buy online,” Mullier says. 

And, he adds, manufacturers of alcoholic beverages increasingly expect transportation compliant with the rules of the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) to give them confidence their products were handled properly, and there was no tampering or breakage during storage or delivery.

Maintaining those standards and monitoring the multiplication of stock-keeping units (SKUs) across a client’s product portfolio is a vital service, Mullier points out, and one that requires major investments in infrastructure – not only to ensure deliveries meet expectations, but to overcome the challenges that come with inventory management and demand forecasting. 

Operationally, then, scaling a global DTC operation for alcohol must overcome significant challenges, says Mullier, with perhaps the greatest barrier stemming from the complexities around managing customs and excise duties. These not only vary between countries; they can vary within them. In federal systems like the U.S. and India, each state often applies its own duties.

“Even in the EU, which has an overall Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) framework for transporting duty-suspended beverages, the rules differ between member states,” he says. “Each country has its specific rules, and on top of that, its rules are subject to interpretation from custom agents.”

And, he points out, the compliance burden goes far deeper than simply tracking volumes. Logistics providers must maintain strict, stage-by-stage accountability for both total liquid volume and the Alcohol By Volume (ABV) percentage so they can accurately calculate the pure alcohol content at every operational step. This requires managing two distinct tax states: Continuously reconciling duty-suspended stock (which is stock that is moving under bond) against the duty-paid inventory that has been released for local consumption. 

This matrix becomes exponentially more complex, Mullier says, when shipments are consolidated at Regional Distribution Centres (RDCs) to serve multiple national jurisdictions, each of which has its own excise rates and tax points. A failure to track stock or to apply the right tax classification risks incurring severe financial penalties and the loss of operating licences.

And although specific excise-duty software is needed to manage the flow, there is no global software solution that covers each country. Managing millions of DTC shipments from bonded warehouses across multiple jurisdictions, then, is a major complication that distracts brands from their core activity, and is best laid off to a logistics partner.

Then, says Mullier, there is the customer experience – which for brands is not simply about the taste in the glass but about ensuring their product is suitably packed and boxed, then delivered in a style befitting a high-quality item. That makes the unboxing experience a key extension of brand identity.

To elevate this experience, brands increasingly rely on their logistics partners for value-added services. E-commerce orders often require warehousing staff to use specialised co-packing or to assemble intricate seasonal gift boxes or integrate premium merchandise like glassware or apparel with the product.

Additionally, logistics providers must manage intensive physical rework operations within the tax warehouse to adapt inventory for destination markets. Because products typically originate with packaging in the source country’s language, this means translating and applying mandatory localised labels – including health warnings, ingredients lists and importer disclosures – to meet national laws. Operators must also precisely affix market-specific fiscal stamps, which function as high-value tax credentials requiring strict inventory auditing alongside physical re-labelling. Centring this work in a tax warehouse makes the supply chain effective and efficient, and ensures products are fully compliant before leaving duty suspension – preventing rejection of goods at borders, significant financial penalties and having shipments impounded.

Beyond presentation and compliance, the physical integrity of the product must be protected, because improper storage can render high-value alcohol worthless. That comes back to the need to ensure temperature control for products whose parameters can vary widely depending on the specific alcohol family – and even between SKUs themselves.

“Spirits are among the least thermosensitive – temperatures can range from between 5°C and 25°C without problems,” Mullier says. “But for champagne, the opposite is true: It must be stored between 12°C and 18°C degrees at all times, although with some variation in producer requirements.”

Finally, Mullier says, high-value products demand high-security logistics. The illicit trade of counterfeit alcohol is a major global criminal enterprise, making supply chain security and traceability a top priority for brands. In March 2026, for instance, the UK’s National Food Crime Unit seized 67,000 suspected fake bottles of wine with a retail value of £500,000. 

Preventing fakes from entering legitimate supply chains requires careful monitoring throughout the 3PL journey – which FM Logistic’s warehouses achieve by being TAPA-certified to ensure human and perimeter security is of the highest standard. Transit, delivery status and completion are monitored via digital control towers to give brands complete visibility over their goods at every stage.

This focus on premium service extends to the consumer’s doorstep, with brands often requiring a white-glove delivery service to reflect the nature of their luxury products – as opposed to standard e-commerce deliveries that might be left unattended on a porch. 

White-glove delivery is central to legal compliance, because alcohol deliveries require age verification. Prearranging delivery times to ensure the recipient is home and courteously requesting verification are important – with this experience often the only face-to-face interaction brands have with DTC clients. By connecting the brand’s e-commerce platform directly to the logistics provider’s systems, mandatory age verification checks can be built into delivery to ensure couriers hand off the product in a compliant manner.

Because DTC alcohol distribution is so complex and the consequences of failure so severe, says Mullier, brands should consider specialised providers. 

By integrating the brand’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform to the 3PL’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) via EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), brands can enjoy real-time automated order flows from the consumer’s cart to the warehouse floor, while ensuring the right compliance, excise duty and age verification protocols are in place, along with picking instructions and transport bookings.

“In other words, the ideal approach is to be system-integrated with your customers at the ERP and WMS level, and have transparent and direct communication,” he says. 

As major brands continue to expand their global DTC footprints, those that can deliver distinctive products in innovative ways will win market share from competitors that cannot do so in a compliant and seamless fashion. As Mullier sees it, DTC logistics is becoming a core strategic asset, not a back-office function. Consequently, brands must select a 3PL partner that not only can scale their e-fulfilment operations, but can handle the alcohol sector’s unique regulatory hurdles while delivering that all-important premium customer experience.