The EBBS team wanted to launch a high-quality brand that resonated with the spirit of New York, but luck was not on their side. Everything came to a standstill at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic -- New York became a ghost town, with almost every bar, restaurant, and brewery closing their doors, and most consumers quarantining at home. The question quickly became: "How do we launch a new brand in a global pandemic?"

EBBS remained resilient, and began to quickly adapt a new strategy around the evolving global situation. Rather than delay their launch entirely, they realized that they had an opportunity to utilize e-commerce as an option to get their product in the hands of consumers despite more traditional routes to brand launch and distribution were closed to them. They needed:

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• E-Commerce Fulfillment and Marketplace Placement: Without access to most retailers in the city (i.e. bars and restaurants), online alcohol shopping exploded. Optimal online marketplace placement, fast and accurate fulfillment, and a large home-delivery network were all necessary to get started.

• Retail Relationships: Despite traditional pipelines being almost entirely at a standstill, partnerships with supermarkets, convenience stores, and the like were still viable options to begin building a core base of wholesale relationships within the first few months of the pandemic. The more connections made when the industry was slowed, the more appealing they would look to bars, restaurants, and other retail partners once the city opened back up.