ShipCompliant Launches New Wine Direct Shipping Portal for Wine Institute

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ShipCompliant and Wine Institute continue to collaborate and innovate on delivering up-to-the-minute direct shipping information to the wine industry. This week they jointly launched a new version of the direct shipping portal within the Wine Institute website (http://wineinstitute.shipcompliant.com).

Created in 2004 and supported by ShipCompliant's geography-based rules engine technology, the portal provides state by state shipping rules, carrier shipping policy table, direct shipping permit applications, state contact information, and a volume conversion tool for use in reporting, all available to the public. ShipCompliant launched the commercial version of this technology in 2006, which provides compliance checks on orders and generates auto-populated shipping and tax reports for wineries and retailers.

Steve Gross, Director of State Relations at Wine Institute, explains that “direct shipment legislation has evolved over the past two decades. While now allowing wineries the opportunity to potentially ship to over 80% of adult U.S. consumers, this access comes with a complex framework of licensing, tax payment and reporting requirements that wineries must now navigate to stay in compliance.”

Many wineries and consumers thought that the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Granholm v. Heald would be a silver bullet for opening all states to unrestricted direct to consumer shipping and simplifying compliance once and for all. Steve Gross explains that “contrary to popular expectations, the Granholm decision in many cases put states in a position where they had to quickly examine and replace their existing shipping statutes with nondiscriminatory laws. The resulting legislation was often complex, and the related compliance burden on wineries has made providing a consolidated source for accurate information, such as that provided through our website, even more important to our members.”

ShipCompliant technology is also in use in the Wine Institute Tax Lookup tool, available exclusively to Wine Institute members and providing an interface to query sales and excise tax rates for consumer shipments based on state, county, city, zip code and specific street address. Over 100 Wine Institute member wineries have signed up for a Tax Lookup tool account.

"The tax lookup tool underlines ShipCompliant's commitment to using our technology and research resources to make vital direct shipping information easily accessible and usable for wineries," says Jason Eckenroth, President of ShipCompliant. "We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Wine Institute in providing the de-facto source for wine direct shipping information"

About ShipCompliant:

ShipCompliant is produced by Six88 Solutions, a Boulder, CO-based software company. ShipCompliant offers a web based subscription service that provides direct shipping compliance checks and reporting for more than 600 wine brands throughout the United States. (http://www.shipcompliant.com)

About Wine Institute:

Founded in 1934, Wine Institute is the public policy advocacy association of California wineries that brings together the resources of 1093 wineries and affiliated businesses to initiate and advocate state, federal and international public policy to enhance the environment for the responsible consumption and enjoyment of wine. (http://wineinstitute.org)