

Ask HN: Why isn't Amazon the largest online wine, beer & spirits merchant? - malandrew

What is it about over the internet alcohol sales that prevents Amazon from being the largest online seller of wines, beers and spirits?<p>I would imagine that it would be trivial for them to add an age verification process where a user verifies his or her age with government issued ID and takes a photo of his or her face, then at checkout, they take a photo of the user at checkout with the getUserMedia API to confirm the person buying alcohol is the same person who verified their age.
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sfrechtling
I think a big part of it is regulation. Namely, the difference in regulation
between countries (and even local laws), their need to follow regulation (not
only age verification, but also licenses) and then also duty of care and
insurances. That is of course on top of sourcing, storing, distributing,
shipping, warehousing, training.

