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Company details

  1. Liquor Store

Information provided by various external sources

Wine, Beer & Spirits ordered at the push of a button. Serving the United Kingdom


Contact info

1.9

Poor

TrustScore 2 out of 5

12 reviews

5-star
4-star
3-star
2-star
1-star

Hasn’t replied to negative reviews

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

DO NOT BUY FROM AKIY.CO.UK

DO NOT BUY FROM AKIY.CO.UK. IFI COULD GIVE THEM LESS THAN ONE STAR I WOULD. I ORDERED TWO GLITTERY TOPS BUT RECEIVED (after a long wait and an email to them asking where my order was) TWO VERY CHEAP TOPS WITH NO GLITTER IR SEQUINS ON THEM AT ALL. EMAILED THEM ABOUT IT AND GIT NO REPLY. I BELIEVE THIS COMPANY IS A SCAM SITE SO AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS AND DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY.

January 30, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Ordered the very expensive cuisinart…

Ordered the very expensive cuisinart blender, arrived okay only to discover it is a American blender with US attachment and different voltage! None of this is mentioned on the website, contacted them via email got immediate response admitting they were at fault and would send a voltage converter. Nothing ever arrived and all contact with Alky has gone unanswered. The cost of the blender has increased significantly on the website but still no details to say it’s is American voltage and plug. No trying other options do redress to get my money back. DONT USE THIS WEBSITE

June 10, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

AVOID

AVOID. This is 100% scam. We ordered a very special bottle for our best friend's 40th birthday. Not only has the gift not arrived. Emails, phone calls, social media have all been unanswered. This website and company needs to be banned. Seems like we are not the only ones scammed unfortunately. This guy called Nikolai has stolen all our money.

May 22, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

AVOID!!!

Shocking customer service. Bought and paid for a bottle of whisky on 13th of April and have thus far received nothing! Have emailed twice for an update and not heard anything back! AVOID AVOID AVOID!!

May 17, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely gutted,

Absolutely gutted,
Purchased a bottle of brothers bond bourbon as a present for my daughters 18th Birthday from this company I have the Order receipt and i am tracking it from AfterShip.
The problem is it was pending in my bank/PayPal account and now it’s like the payment never existed and every time I try to track it, it always say order number and email doesn’t exist.
Emailed the company twice and have heard nothing so I am no assuming it that I’m never going to get it.
Such a shame I have to give such a low star.

I’ll let you know if I have any updates about my order

April 30, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

After an initial mix up with the…

After an initial mix up with the address labels which caused the bottle of whisky to be returned by DHL, it finally arrived several weeks later. I was worried something would go wrong as I paid a lot more for this item than I would normally because it sold out everywhere virtually instantly and has been very difficult to get hold of. Emails to chase were undelivered so I contacted Nicolai the CEO directly and he was aware of the situation, corresponded regularly, left me voicemails and generally reassured me all was being done to ship the order. It came very well packed and I recent updates every step of the way once DHL processed it through customs. Very happy with Alky and would buy again.

March 27, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

For drinks that cannot be sourced locally.

At my first visit I was dubious as I hadn’t heard of Alky, my first delivery was problem free. I ordered whisky from Game of Thrones that I could not source in the UK. I received a text telling me when it would be delivered, it arrived securely packed and delivered by DHL. My second delivery was this week, yet again trouble free, I am now awaiting my third delivery next week. I have gave this company 5 stars, which is well deserved.

March 26, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Positives and negatives

There are positives and negatives with this company. Negatives first. I bought over £500 of whisky from this company this month in a single transaction. At first I was very worried if I had been scammed. The main reason for this was the lack of communication from them. Their website places them as a registered UK seller and indeed they are. I would refer to them as more of a broker though as they don't carry any stock. With most .co.uk sellers, you receive correspondence on order processing, despatch, tracking number and receive goods within 72 hours, When you don't get any correspondence from emails you tend to get suspicious. Also, when a seller tells you over the phone that they will send you an email directly following the phone call and don't, that also makes buyers suspicious. Customer confidence is very important in any transaction, that's what makes us give 5 star reviews. They shipped my package from Spain and from order to delivery it took 9 days. That's not going to get a 5 star review. On the paperwork that accompanied the package, my address was prefixed by Alky Ltd and the value of the package was £150. This is how Customs payments are avoided. However, should Customs dispute this any incumbent charges would have come to the receiver, not the sender. Very risky for the buyer. The bottles I bought were loosely packaged in a recycled Amazon box. Professional sellers use airsac packaging or ample amounts of bubble wrap. My 6 bottles were laid horizontal and packed with only polystyerene pieces. That will explain how one of the base of the tubes got bashed.
Positives now: The bottles I ordered were sold out in all the 30 online UK retail outlets that I tried. Alky managed to source these bottles and advertise them on their website and I would consider at a relatively good price. After some perseverance with the correspondence they began to reply. They are a legitimate company and eventually provided me with the goods that I purchased.
I am quite sure that future buyers will receive their products but I am also sure that the transaction will not be smooth compared to the 5 star sellers that we buyers are looking for. Giving Alky the benefit of the doubt, they may get better over time. Hopefully, they take stock of my review and improve their customer service from the outset and use better packaging for their transportation. For future buyers, you can check if they have by looking at the date of any reviews after mine. I hope that by being honest Alky take cognisance of this review, use it to improve their customer experience and go on to become a successful company. If they don't, they won't last long in this industry.

March 25, 2021
Unprompted review
Alky logo

Reply from Alky

Hi Christoper

Thank you for your honest review and feelings about your order.
We are by no means a scamming company, and yes we are registered as a UK company, but we do handle most of our orders remotely from Spain, France and the US.

We apologise for the lack of communication, our system runs on Shopify and we do try to create an automated purchase and follow up process. This is not perfect and that was also the reason why we gave you a call last week, to follow up with your order and give you an estimated time of delivery. This needs to improve on our end, as customer service is essential to our business.

We wouldn't call ourself brokers, but you're kinda right. We operate a Marketing Platform which is Alky.co.uk, where buyers like yourself can order from our site, and we then give out the orders to our partners / suppliers around the world, who fulfil the orders on behalf of us at Alky.

Your order was shipped from Spain correct, Malaga to be exact. I (Nicolai) was in charge of the packaging of the bottles myself and thought I did a good job repackaging the bottles, considering the arrived from our Amazon Partner in a box with only thick paper protection between the bottles and some of the tops of the tubes had come loose during the shipment to the warehouse. I apologise for the based tube, was it fixable and I assume no damage had occurred to the bottle?

As you mentioned all the bottles are sold out on all 30 sites in the UK, which is where our company comes in to help obtain the desired items. In Spain you can currently stroll in to any alcohol shop and purchase the same bottles you ordered, however to ship it out of Spain you need to be registered to do so with DHL.

We operate in a niche market and our customers won't look to Alky when restocking the bottom and middle shelves of their alcohol cabinet or getting regular whiskies or wine, but only items not available in their country.

The paperwork that accompanied your package had our company name on it, since that's what DHL recommend us doing, since their system doesn't allow no name in the backed. Regarding the value of the package, it was correctly a £150, since that's what it costs us to get your 6 bottles from our supplier. We do my no means try to avoid custom charges and if custom ever questioned the value of the bottles, we have a formal invoice to present to them. Even if customs would demanded an extra import charge, then we at Alky would pay for, not the receiver, since all our orders a DDP deliveries.

We do appreciate your honest review and we will work harder to create a better customer experience and relationship for all future orders.

Thank you
Nicolai - Team Alky

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Great Online Provider - Highly Recommend

I used Alky for the first time last week to buy a bottle of Midleton VR 2020. I was so impressed with the company. The level of service was the best I have come across from any on line provider, their interaction throughout the entire process was great - even replying to emails on a Sunday! They were easy to deal with and very reassuring and I’m so pleased to have found them - I will definitely be using them again and I would recommend them to anyone.

March 2, 2021
Unprompted review
Alky logo

Reply from Alky

Hi John

Thank you so much for the kind words, we do appreciate you as a customer.
We try to get back at our earliest convenance when it comes to updates and replies on email.

In your particular case, you were lucky to receive it so quickly, we were impressed ourselves.
Our main distributor of Midleton VR 2020 ran out and we have had to contact individual suppliers around the US, to find, pay and arrange shipping of individual bottles in the last month.

Thank you for using us
Nicolai - Team Alky

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Good service for imported US whiskey

I ordered two bottles of hard to find whiskey online. Initially I was a little worried as I had no contact for a while (ordered on the 3rd Dec) but email was picked up in early Jan and the import issue was explained. Received my bottles this morning in perfect condition from the US. Pricing was good and no extra duty charges. Bit of a wait, but other than that great service

January 15, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Shocking service... AVOID

I ordered £198 of alcohol on 4th December. Absolutely no contact from Alky throughout. Shipment started in Germany... never left and one month later I hadnt heard from the company despite FOUR emails. I mentioned trading standards in my latest email and received a response quickly... simply blaming shipping and distancing themselves. I've asked for a full refund and if one isn't provided I will pursue through small claims court. TERRIBLE... STAY AWAY!

January 8, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Bad communication and unclear how they operate

Please be aware that this company doesn’t have any alcohol in stock, so when you go to order, they order it from elsewhere and it could be a long time before you receive your item because they don’t make this explicitly clear at the checkout. I ordered a bottle on the 4th of December and after seeing it still hadn’t been dispatched a couple of weeks later, I emailed. Heard nothing back so I attempted to find a phone number to call. There is no number for this company (edit: they have now added it in, in response to this review). I searched their address on google maps and an entirely different company appeared under that address, so I called them and they said that it is just an address used for companies that have no set base, and that I should call Trading Standards in case I’ve been scammed. Alky finally responded to a second email, saying it definitely won’t get to me in time for Christmas, and it states in their website terms and conditions the way they operate. I mean, who looks at the terms and conditions on a website? They need to be much clearer. I finally received a refund after the second email.

December 23, 2020
Unprompted review
Alky logo

Reply from Alky

Dear Sarah

We are a marketplace like Drinks&Co, UrbanDrinks and Clos19, which none holds physical stock, but order from their suppliers.

All our orders take 14-21 days to process, 1 week alone goes on capturing the payment of our customers, and 3 days for international shipping using DHL Express.
In some cases like yours, we are awaiting our distributor to obtain a rare bottle like your Heaven’s Door bottle, this have taken longer that we expected, for that we can only apologise.

We refer to our terms and conditions and shipping terms, at checkout since they’re quite important when it comes from international import. If you have not read that, then that is on you and not really us.

Regarding email responds, we tend to respond all mails at our earliest convenience, however Christmas is a very busy time for our little team, so if no respond is given you’re always welcome to give us a call.

Thank you and season greetings 🎄
Team Alky

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