Direct to Consumer Survey

Canadian consumers are seeking more choice and availability of alcoholic beverages (e.g., beer, wine, cider, spirits, coolers, etc.) through various means, including direct shipping. Producers and retailers are also seeking greater access to consumers across the country. Currently, the DTC working group is exploring the ability to ship directly to consumers in another province or territory for personal consumption only.

A consideration for DTC is that each province and territory has different mark-up costs, including taxes and other charges. To streamline this process for sellers and consumers,  the working group is exploring a common carrier approach, which ensures remittance of mark-ups to the consumer’s home province’s or territory’s liquor authority.

At this moment it is unclear what volume or breadth of beverage alcohol products would flow through DTC sales channels. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated a shift in shopping habits towards increased online sales, including with increased sales of alcohol products both intraprovincially and interprovincially, and a DTC system could be an appropriate response to adapt to this shift in consumer buying behavior.

This survey is being conducted by the Direct to Consumer Technically Focused Working Group (DTCTFWG). The DTCTFWG has been created under the CFTA and further to the agreement among federal, provincial and territorial governments to improve consumer choice and greater transparency and access to markets for alcohol producers.

The purpose of this survey is to assist the DTCTFWG with its consideration of options for potential direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales of alcoholic beverages. You are being asked to participate in this survey to determine whether you or your organization has interest in, and capacity to become involved with, the delivery of DTC sales of alcoholic beverages. Your participation in this survey is voluntary.

Your responses will be used by the DTCTFWG to prepare its report, which may be made public. While your name and the name of your organization will be linked to your responses, for the use of the DTCTFWG in the preparation of its report, the report will not itself contain information that can be used to identify participants in the survey, or to link participants to their responses. No identifying information related to your submissions will be included in any public facing document without your prior consent, or as required by law.

You may be contacted to request further clarification on the trade barriers you have identified or the ideas you have proposed to further enhance trade in this sector, if you provide us your contact information.

Please note that while aggregate information related to public input may ultimately be compiled or disseminated, the federal, provincial and territorial governments are under no obligation to publish related findings or the recommendations that result from this survey. Further, any work by the DTCTFWG, including any of its findings, does not necessarily mean that DTC sales of alcoholic beverages will be introduced and/or that your organization will be given an opportunity to participate in such sales.

Your responses are confidential. While we will use reasonable efforts to protect any survey results you provide us, in accordance with our Privacy Statement, we cannot guarantee that our safeguarding procedures will prevent the loss of, alteration of, or improper access to, your survey results.

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this survey, please send an email to secretariat@its-sci.ca and a representative from the DTCTFWG will be in touch with you.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) shipments are already permitted by some provinces, so it is understood that carriers may already be shipping alcohol within and across provincial borders. The model being explored would likely increase the number of participants in the system, and also require remittance of mark-ups collected on interprovincial DTC sales to the appropriate provincial authorities.

Last Updated: October 15, 2020