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Booze Carriage, the brainchild of New Rochelle native Rob Matzkin, is a mobile application that delivers beer, wine and top-shelf spirits to your doorstep, free of charge and without price mark ups.
According to Matzkin, 30, the idea for Booze Carriage was borne from a football Sunday of his own, while he and his friends debated over who would have to take the trek through the cold to pick up more drinks.
“I came up with the idea when watching a game with the guys and getting sick of arguing over who was going out to get the beer. So I thought, why isn’t there a Seamless or Uber for booze,” he said. “Now, in three or four clicks, you can have booze delivered within the hour. We service everyone, from party boys ordering beer to housewives ordering champagne.“
To provide the delivery service, Booze Carriage teams with “mom and pop” retail stores that facilitate deliveries to customers. The service has helped smaller liquor stores boost sales, aiding them in competing with larger, more commercialized locations.
The son of a small-business owner, Matzkin has headed up two prior start-ups in the eCommerce space of the past decade, joking that “small business is in (his) DNA.”
“Most of our partners have two or more delivery people managing the orders we send them, with a handful growing to as many as six delivery people due to our service,” Matzkin said. “It’s a great feeling knowing that we have been able to empower local retailers and reinvigorate their business.”
Matzkin said that he faced countless challenges in getting Booze Carriage up and running, not limited to the navigation of laws governing the sale of alcohol, marketing the product in a previously non-existent field and selling store owners on the idea of an alcohol delivery service.
Booze Carriage has already seen the quickest adoption in customers between the ages of 25 and 35-years-old, who purchase beer, liquor and wine reasonably easily, most often between 8 and 10 p.m. for “pre-gaming” before customers head out for the evening.
“We don’t believe in marking up prices or charging delivery fees to our customers,” Matzkin said. “We are focused on leading this paradigm shift to how alcohol is purchased while providing retail business owners with the tools to compete with growing online businesses.”
Although the app is currently limited to deliveries in New York City, Matzkin said he has plans to expand further, including into Westchester, though they are doing so slowly and in a calculated manner. Booze Carriage recently hired Joseph Franze, who has tripled sales, as chief executive officer to handle the expansion.
“There is nothing more I want to do than be sitting at my parents’ house (in Scarsdale) and be able to order from the couch, that’s why I started Booze Carriage,” he said. “We are being very strategic with our expansion, but are excited to surprise a few people in the very near future.”
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