When selling age-limit products online to customers what sort of precautions should I take?

Posted by admin
HALLAL_Kippah-Girl_JPAA asked:


I will be selling liquor online as a joint venture business that will be attempting to sell a range of fine products but there will be liquor in product line. This is going to be an online site and I am looking for suggestions on how to be user-friendly to adult shoppers but safeguard against an accidental sale to a minor.

ALDEN
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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 10:34 am and is filed under Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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4 Responses to “When selling age-limit products online to customers what sort of precautions should I take?”

  1. LUCAS Says:
    November 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    DAMON

    you’re not going to be selling liquor on-line. Thats for sure.

  2. BEN Says:
    November 7th, 2009 at 1:56 am

    ROYCE

    prolly their id #’s and the state id #

  3. SYLVESTER Says:
    November 9th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    MICHAEL

    Delivery carrier will require proof of age and an adult signature.

  4. EDGAR Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

    GERRY

    The only way to safeguard 100% against selling to a minor is to open an actual liquor store and ask for everyone’s ID who looks under 30…and some states say 40. You can ask for their state ID numbers, but any kid could just use their parent’s ID, or some other person who is older than 21.

    Most websites that feature or sell alcohol ask for your birth date before you can enter the site, but that can very easily be faked. I suppose you could ask that all of your customers get on a video conference to confirm age and identity, but that would just seem like a lot of work even to people who are over 21, and may kill your business. Plus it would be very time consuming for you and your business partner.

    Good luck on this one, but my advice is to proceed with extreme caution. I don’t see it really being possible to safeguard against sales to minors in this case.

    Edit: pixel_cutter has a good point with carriers requiring adult signatures. I forgot about that. But any person over 21 could sign for it and turn around and give it to the minor. Kids could still use their parent’s information and have the product sent to a friend’s who is over 21. It’s still more than I thought of though.