ReserveBar to Acquire Minibar Delivery
Derek Correia, president of ReserveBar, recently told Forbes that this includes “powering brand sites and giving them the ability to enable e-commerce through our compliant platform. It also includes content-to-commerce, powering publishers to make content shoppable, non-endemic partnerships that add alcohol offerings that enhance the partners core product and service portfolio and turning events and sampling into purchase occasions whereby consumers can download recipes and immersive brand education and purchase the product right on their phone for delivery to their home.”
An imminent merger between ReserveBar, a tech platform in the premium spirits space, and Minibar Delivery, an on-demand alcohol and beverage-centric delivery service, aims to consolidate a part of the beverage-alcohol e-commerce market and grow the companies’ delivery capabilities and fulfillment network nationwide.
The two companies plan to link their retailers, customer bases, technology and delivery modalities. Under the agreement, Minibar Delivery will offer a wider selection of products, including special limited-edition items, new product launches and celebrity-backed spirits that are showcased on reservebar.com, as well as ReserveBar's personalized and engraved bottles and gift offerings, according to a recent media release announcing the merger. Suppliers will also have access to both companies' suite of marketing tactics, data and business intelligence, and technology solutions.
Minibar Delivery is already available from more than 2,800 retail locations, including independent liquor stores and national retailers including 7-Eleven and Total Wine. ReserveBar expects the merger will grow the combined companies’ retailer footprint to 5,000 by the end of 2022, in states where delivery of alcohol is permitted.
Additionally, ReserveBar says the acquisition will further accelerate the deployment of its application programming interface (API) technology, enabling third parties to offer consumers a path to purchase alcohol online “in a compliant fashion.”
"We created Minibar Delivery in an effort to build the best way for consumers to shop online for wine, spirits and beer,” said Lindsey Andrews, CEO and co-founder of Minibar Delivery, in the release. Once the merger is finalized, Andrews will remain CEO of Minibar and will report to Lindsay Held, CEO and co-founder of ReserveBar, who will also hold the title of executive chairman of Minibar.
"ReserveBar primarily focuses on premium and luxury spirits, utilizing ground-shipping fulfillment, while Minibar Delivery has focused on meeting the customer's everyday needs for wine, spirits, beer, and ready-to-drink (RTDs) cocktails, with on-demand delivery,” Held said in the release. “Together, we can provide our clients with the best purchasing experience in the market.”
Jim Clerkin, chairman of ReserveBar, who worked with both companies during his tenure as CEO of Moet Hennessy, called the deal an “industry-consolidating acquisition” that “firmly establishes ReserveBar as the first spirits e-commerce company that can meet all consumer needs and occasions while accelerating the services and performance we offer to suppliers and retailers.”
The deal is expected to finalize this week, after the companies began negotiations “long before” the COVID-19 pandemic. “As both companies have grown and consumer adoption of e-commerce has accelerated, we recently revisited our original thesis and found it even more compelling than before,” Correia told Forbes.