Most beverage alcohol brands approach e-commerce expecting it to be a profit channel. In practice, that’s rarely the case—especially early on.

Once retail margins, shipping costs, transaction fees, and paid media are layered in, the unit economics tighten quickly. Even brands with healthy gross margins often find themselves close to breakeven before advertising is considered.

That doesn’t mean e-commerce isn’t worth doing. It just means it should be evaluated differently.

Used correctly, e-commerce functions less as a volume driver and more as a learning system. It provides direct insight into who actually buys the brand, where demand exists, what messaging resonates, and how customer behavior evolves over time. Those insights tend to matter far more than short-term profitability.

When our executive team tasked us with forming a cross-functional sales task force, we weren’t given a traditional brief — we were given a mandate: figure out why sales were declining, morale was eroding, and teams were overwhelmed. What we discovered wasn’t a lack of talent or effort. It was a system problem.