Niche Internet Business: Accidental Wines

I like to write about successful niche businesses that are built on one clever idea. I read about one in the Chicago Tribune - Accidental Wine Company.

They are built around the fact that wineries have accidents: for example, a case is dropped and, while not all bottles are damaged, the wine from broken bottles stain the still intact ones. Or, the labels have typos.

If the winery doesn't want to sell those bottles, they can call Accidental Wines, who will buy the bottles and resell them at a discount over the internet.

It's another example of win-win-win. The original winery makes something off of bottles that they otherwise would not sell, customers willing to take stained or marred bottles get good wines at 1/3 to 1/4 the price, and Accidental Wines makes a profit on the resale.

The current economic crisis has helped their business, as people still want to drink wines, but they want to cut expenses.