Wine is a harder commerce problem than it looks. The same bottle has different duty status depending on where it sits, different prices depending on who is asking, and an identity that includes a vintage, a producer and sometimes a specific case.
Importer and merchant catalogues with producer, vintage and format structure. Bonded and duty-suspended stock handling. Trade and consumer pricing on the same catalogue. Allocation for limited releases. Age verification. Storefront rebuilds and migrations off ageing systems.
Duty status travels with the stock. The same physical case is worth different amounts, and carries different obligations, depending on whether it is in bond or duty paid. Selling in bond to a trade buyer and duty paid to a consumer from one catalogue means stock has a status dimension most inventory systems do not model.
A product is not a SKU. Producer, wine, vintage, format and case configuration all vary independently. A 2019 in magnum is not the same product as a 2019 in bottle, and a system that flattens that will produce a catalogue nobody in the trade can use.
Two customer types, one catalogue. Trade buyers see different prices, buy in different units, expect credit terms and often work in bond. Consumers do not. Running two storefronts is expensive; running one that behaves correctly for both is a pricing and permissions problem.
Allocation is a feature, not an edge case. Limited releases are offered to selected customers in defined quantities before general sale. That is a workflow with its own states, not a stock level with a note attached.
Age verification affects checkout, not just signup. It has to be resolved before dispatch, and the failure path needs a refund route rather than an apologetic email.
We work with UK wine importers on catalogues, pricing and storefront rebuilds, including bonded stock and trade pricing on the same system as consumer sales.