Exclusive: Why Urban Stems is selling alcohol

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What happens when flowers meet alcohol? Well, they make the perfect gifting bundle, at least according to Meenakshi Lala, CEO of floral delivery service UrbanStems, which has struck up a partnership with Drinks, the AI-powered e-commerce alcohol platform.

To kick off the collaboration, UrbanStems will offer its editorial floral arrangements paired with organic wines from Avaline (co-founded by Cameron Diaz)—all shipped together through Drinks’s decentralized fulfillment network.

The move comes as UrbanStems continues to scale its business. Bloomberg reported the company’s valuation at more than $100 million in 2021, and it went on to raise another $5 million in a Series C extension in 2024.

For UrbanStems, the partnership represents its first step toward becoming a broader premium gifting platform. For Drinks, it’s “the first major move into the gifting vertical,” per the company.

“Our vision is always about challenging the idea of, how do we bring those, those elements together to create this highly curated, cohesive gifting experience for our consumer, where, as a gifter, you don’t have to go through three websites or three platforms and to check out to really deliver that wow factor to your recipe,” Lala told Retail Brew, adding that wine was a perfect choice to debut the partnership as it is a “natural complement to flowers,” while Avaline stood out as it was both woman-founded and eco-conscious.

Although it’s starting with wine, UrbanStems isn’t stopping there. Lala said the brand will track shopper response to the initial rollout and expects to expand into additional alcohol brands and categories over time.

Drink and a nod: And the timing seems right. In 2025, the US premium alcohol market was valued at $596.77 billion, and is projected to reach $950.84 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, survey data from Civic Science found that 40% of Americans were likely to pick wine as a gift.

And while competitors like 1-800-Flowers already offer wine add-ons, Lala noted that the buying experience often redirects shoppers to a third-party site. UrbanStems aims to keep the process seamless. Drinks also enables the brand to sell alcohol across all 50 states without holding licenses or inventory.

“Floral supply chain and fulfillment is not for the faint hearted,” she said. “It is one of the most complex categories to source and fulfill. Alcohol is another really complex and highly regulated category.”

Bringing those two categories together, she said, has required “an extremely complex integration. No cookie-cutter off-the-shelf platform exists that allows you to plug and play, and blend alcohol with gifting.” That’s where Drinks becomes a “game changer,” according to Lala.

Ultimately, she hopes that introducing alcohol as a complementary category will help lift average order value (AOV), repeat purchase frequency, and basket attachment rates. However, as a premium floral gifting service, Lala believes it’s important to justify its premium positioning to customers.

“Our basket size over the last few years has increased, but to continue to encourage our customers to see the value in the AOV that we are demanding for our product, we have to reciprocate and give them that experience,” she said. “Why would you pay $150+ for a bundle?”