Wine Gift Certificates and Expiration Dates

Just as wine direct shipment laws vary between states, so do the laws regarding expiration of gift certificates. Recent laws have lengthened the minimum expiration period to 5 years or more in some places. As a business owner, most of us would like to set an expiration date for gift certificates that we issue, to more easily allow any liability to be adjusted off our books.

Our experience has shown that most wine gift certificates are redeemed within 3 months of receipt, with another spike around the one year anniversary (likely due to the gift giver asking the recipient about last year's gift).

If you choose to sell wine gift certificates online using WineWeb's e-commerce service, you can set the expiration days, or choose that the certificates never expire. The system displays appropriate wording on the certificate so you're in compliance will all laws. You, as an administrator of the service, can redeem any gift certificate, regardless of the expiration date, which is useful if the gift recipient phones or walks into your tasting room.

Wine gift certificates are a great way to increase your business' cash flow around the holiday season. WineWeb makes it easy to sell, redeem and administer your gift certificates.