RICHMOND, Va. -- Citing challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Virginia ABC has canceled most of its fall and Christmastime promotions offering deep discounts on alcohol.
"A combination of factors has led us to the decision to move away from most of our usual promotions through the end of 2020, including Door Busters, Spirited Thursdays, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, in order to provide a sales experience that accounts for safety and convenience in these challenging times," Virginia ABC CEO Travis Hill wrote in a statement about the changes. "The ongoing global pandemic has caused various distilled spirits suppliers to have inventory challenges. Due to the uncertainty of this health crisis, we are unable to forecast which products will be impacted and for how long. It wouldn’t be fair to our customers to offer our usual holiday promotions and have a number of products out-of-stock."
In addition, Virginia ABC announced it was "halting all short-term promotional sales offered online."
"We are in the final stages of a project that began more than a year ago to transition to a new data center that is expected to upgrade our technical capabilities in many areas, including our website," Hill wrote. "We are halting all short-term promotional sales offered online until we can stabilize our systems in the new data center and can ensure the website is ready for a cyber event that delivers an experience that is up to all of our standards."
Hill also cited crowd size in stores during sales and the concerns raised about social distancing.
"We have worked hard to create a shopping environment that is safe for our customers and employees, and we want to keep it that way," he wrote. "For these reasons, we believe it is best to take a different approach to how we offer special buying opportunities for the remainder of 2020."
He encouraged customers to "check out the multiple in-store and online savings opportunities planned on hundreds of products throughout the holidays."
