To All of Our Confusion––Amazon Launches Its Own Gin Brand

Amazon first launched as an online marketplace for books in 1994. Since then, the e-commerce giant has grown into the world’s largest online retailer, selling an array of products including electronics, software systems, video games, apparel, furniture, toys, jewelry and more. 

Just when the world thought Amazon had done it all, the company with an “Effect” named after it acquired Whole Foods Market in 2017. The acquisition benefitted both parties and allowed Amazon to add another notch to its belt of consumer products. The e-commerce brand gained 450 physical locations and fulfilled its long-standing desire to become an even bigger player in the industry. 

Taking it a step further, according to CNBC, Amazon has now launched its own premium gin brand in the United Kingdom, called Tovess Gin. Yes, you’re reading that correctly.  

Why would the leading e-commerce brand tap into the alcohol market? 

According to Kantar, gin is the U.K.’s most popular spirit, with more than a quarter of the population purchasing the heavenly nectar, er, alcoholic beverage in the 12 months leading up to June 2019, CNBC said. If you search “gin” on Amazon’s U.K. site, more than 10,000 product results show up. Talk about brand buzz.

This provides even more opportunity for Amazon to grow its grocery sales, which apparently now include the expansion of its own private-label products. That’s right: Because the e-commerce juggernaut realizes that today's consumers are all about convenience and door-step delivery, Amazon decided to launch its very own line of products in 2018, which, according to CNBC, is on pace to generate more than $25 billion in sales by 2022. 

Of course, creating its own label benefits Amazon by improving margins, but the new foray into the A.B. industry can also be used to help persuade big-name brands to cut their prices on its website to stay competitive, thereby giving Amazon control over the supply chain, CNBC reports. 

Along with the Whole Foods’ product lines, the gin is listed on the Amazon site under “our brands.”

Further attempting to monopolize yet another industry, at the bottom of the “our brands” page is a link that takes manufacturers to a sign-up page to make products that become part of Amazon’s own collection of private label brands. The gin-genuity (...sorry).

It will be interesting to see if Amazon decides to launch its own private-label alcohol brand in the U.S —assuming, of course, that the tax bucket can stay dry.