Online Grocery Ordering

Hi all,

I'm interested in setting up a small-scale online grocery ordering
business. I've done several hours worth of research, reading about
past failures and current businesses. I'm wondering what steps I
might need to take to make this a reality, legally. I'm assuming I
can't just go out, get a DBA, and advertise products from various
grocery stores...

Will I need to have a contract drawn up in order to do business of
this sort with a grocer? I plan to only charge a delivery fee, which
will be either fixed or vary linearly with price.

I'm also curious about alcohol delivery and what I would need to do
here as well (i.e. would I need a liquor license in order to do
this?).

I'm considering offering a similar service with common items from
department stores too; if there are any major differences in the rules
that I would face here, please let me know.

Thanks for any information/direction provided.

David

David -

If I understand you correctly, you want to start a delivery business,
and what you want to deliver is groceries. I would not see any reason
why you would have to contact the grocery store where you get the
groceries, unless of course you want to use their name/logo on your
website. With that said, you may still want to speak with the store and
try to negotiate some type of discount on your orders.

I am not sure about alcohol and tobacco delivery. I am sure this is a
thing that will vary state-by-state and even city-by-city.

With all that said, I have made a web application specifically designed
for online grocery shopping.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.tgct.net/tgct/jsp/Grocery.jsp" target="_blank">http://www.tgct.net/tgct/jsp/Grocery.jsp</a> for

The above link has a wealth on information about online grocery shopping
and also information about my application. Browse around, and contact
me with any questions you may have.

Hope to hear from you soon.

- Thadd

David D wrote:
 > Hi all,
 >
 > I'm interested in setting up a small-scale online grocery ordering
 > business. I've done several hours worth of research, reading about
 > past failures and current businesses. I'm wondering what steps I
 > might need to take to make this a reality, legally. I'm assuming I
 > can't just go out, get a DBA, and advertise products from various
 > grocery stores...
 >
 > Will I need to have a contract drawn up in order to do business of
 > this sort with a grocer? I plan to only charge a delivery fee, which
 > will be either fixed or vary linearly with price.
 >
 > I'm also curious about alcohol delivery and what I would need to do
 > here as well (i.e. would I need a liquor license in order to do
 > this?).
 >
 > I'm considering offering a similar service with common items from
 > department stores too; if there are any major differences in the rules
 > that I would face here, please let me know.
 >
 > Thanks for any information/direction provided.
 >
 > David
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->