Two pieces of news today, both of which are good for DTC winery sales …
Firstly, the Nova Scotia government has sent out a message to stakeholders indicating that it will proceed with its previously announced plans to permit inter-provincial DTC shipment of wine to consumers in that province. The responsible Minister noted that the most frequent comment during a consultation process was that Nova Scotia should \”be a leader by adopting regulations to allow direct to consumer shipping of wine and encouraging other Canadian provinces to reduce interprovincial importation restrictions to help create an open Canadian market\”. The applicable legal changes are expected this year.
Secondly, in British Columbia, the LDB has announced that it will switch on April 1st from \”tax included\” shelf prices to pre-tax shelf pricing in all government liquor stores. Up until now, it had become the standard for all liquor retailers including wineries to also use \”tax included\” pricing. A switch to pre-tax pricing will be beneficial for winery DTC sales because the sales taxes on a DTC sale will vary depending upon the destination … and it was previously confusing for out-of-province customers to see web site pricing that included BC sales taxes.