How an Asian Merchant Reduced Admin and Sped Up Deliveries with Liv-ex ABVs
Wine Kin, a Singapore-based wine merchant, was built on its founders’ deep experience in both traditional wine retail and modern tech start-ups. Striking a balance between white-glove service and digital efficiency, the company offers clients both professional wine storage and a curated selection ranging from everyday bottles to high-end, rare icons like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. With a small, global team, Wine Kin remains responsive to changing market dynamics, including the growing interest among next-generation consumers in exploring diverse and unconventional wines and spirits.
Liv-ex has broadened Wine Kin’s range of offerings while also supporting compliance with complex and ever-evolving customs regulations—a key operational challenge for a global wine merchant.
Need: Providing accurate ABVs to stay compliant
In Singapore—and many other countries—providing accurate ABV (alcohol by volume) values for customs declarations is essential. Even small discrepancies can lead to delays of up to two weeks, and warehouses may impose additional charges for any errors.
Before adopting Liv-ex, Wine Kin relied on a manual process: searching Google Images and visually scanning bottle labels to find ABV information. This method was not only inefficient but also time-consuming, often taking an entire day and repeating every other week.
Solution: Liv-ex’s verified ABVs – in bulk
To solve the challenge, Wine Kin turned to Liv-ex’s ABV database, which contains alcohol by volume data for over 40,000 SKUs, all manually checked and verified by experts. The database continues to grow as new wines are added, and Liv-ex members can access this data in bulk—retrieving ABVs for long lists of wines in just seconds.
This isn’t only relevant to merchants based in Singapore, but also other countries, such as the UK, to help navigate the recent excise duty changes.
What used to take a full day of work now only takes 10 minutes, thanks to Liv-ex's ABV tools. Desmond Yeo Wine Kin
Outcome: Faster deliveries and significant time savings
According to Desmond Yeo, founder of Wine Kin, a task that once took an entire day can now be completed in just 10 minutes. This has enabled the business to reduce administrative burden, stay compliant with customs regulations, and deliver wines to customers more quickly and efficiently.
Next Steps: Expanding the Use of Liv-ex Data
For over 20 years, leading wine merchants have trusted Liv-ex as a single source of independent and reliable data. Wine Kin already uses Liv-ex’s Market Price to price wines accurately. Now, Desmond is looking to integrate critics’ scores into the website—via List Studio or API—to enhance the customer experience with trusted, expert-backed insights.
This reflects a broader shift in the industry: modern merchants using data-driven tools to improve efficiency, ensure compliance, and better serve a new generation of wine buyers.