Frequently Asked Questions

General

Registration costs £5 (+VAT) and allows you to buy and sell with us. To sign up now, just click here to add registration to your basket and proceed to make payment via credit/debit card or PayPal. Once paid, you can start bidding right away!

Make sure you are logged in to your Whisky Shop account, then click on My Account at the top of any page, then click change password.

Click here and enter your email address. We'll send an email with a secure link to reset your password.

Click here to view all current lots open for bids. To find out more about selling your item(s) phone us on +44 (0)141 427 2950 or email us at [email protected].

Email [email protected] and we'll put you in touch with one of our expert team.

We are based in Glasgow, Scotland. For full details of where to find us click here.

Email us at [email protected] with as much information about your item(s) as possible including distillery/brand, age, vintage, strength (% abv), and at least one image.

If you are resident in the United Kingdom, VAT is charged on all commission, delivery and admin charges.

If you are not resident in the United Kingdom you will not be subject to VAT.

Monday to Friday 9am-5pm excepting public holidays. (NOTE – no collections before 10am)

Selling

The Whisky Shop Auctions sells whisky, rum, cognac, gin and other spirits. If an item, in our opinion, has no or minimal value, we will advise at the outset and decline to put it to auction. We do not sell wines, beers and ciders, some ceramic decanters and unsealed products.

It is worth what a buyer will pay for it. However, you can get an indication of value by searching our past lots to find if we have sold the item before. Alternatively, contact us either by email on [email protected] or phone us on +44(0)141 427 2950 and we will be able to give you informal guidance.

Go to our guide How to Sell

You can submit as many products as you wish.

We do not have cut-off dates as we offer a continuous, rolling auction service with a choice of duration.

For new releases: We book these in on a first-come-first-served basis. We cannot guarantee or promise start dates before the bottle arrives but will ensure to get it scheduled as quickly as we can for you.

We can sell multiples of the same bottle for you with the exception of new releases, which will be limited to one per person, per week. We're able to accept multiples of new releases but they will be entered into different auctions. If you have any questions regarding new releases, please contact us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to chat.

There are some items of memorabilia we cannot accept such as glasses that are not part of a gift set and some ceramic decanters. For anything else contact us to enquire.

Reserves must be greater than £150, but will not be set higher than 80% of the item's upper estimate. This means that reserves will not be set for items with an upper estimate less than £190.

Log into your account and you will see unsold items. If you wish, you can enter it again into auction. Alternatively, you can take it back. Either collect it at our auction house or ask for your items to be shipped to a store or to your home address (this may incur a shipping cost).

If you decide to enter an item into auction again – called relisting – the listing fee and any applicable reserve fee will also be charged again. This is the case for each time the lot is listed for auction. Your item will then go to auction as usual, giving more potential buyers the chance to bid.

Choose one of 4 ways to get your item(s) to us:

  • Visit us at our Auction House in Glasgow;
  • Call or visit one of our 21 stores in the UK and our staff will help you;
  • Contact us for a courier pick-up and we will send our courier to your doorstep for a collection;
  • Send the items you wish to sell to our Auction House in Glasgow

NOTE: Before you choose any of the above methods, please make sure you have registered with us first.

Log into your TWSA account and there are two ways to follow your auction items:

  • through your account dashboard;
  • go into your selling page and here you will be able to see what each bottle is currently selling for.

You can have the amount sent/credited to your chosen bank account or alternatively, you can choose to have the funds credited to your TWSA virtual wallet and use them for another transaction.

The earliest you can cash out is when we receive payment from the buyer, which we aim to collect within 7 days. For further information, please read our terms and conditions.

Please read our terms and conditions for more information on this.

Buying

There are two ways to bid on an item. You can place a single bid or set your maximum bid.

Auto-bidding is when you nominate your maximum bid. Our bidding system will raise your bid in response to other individual bids on the same lot by the relevant bidding increment. The system will not bid higher than the amount you nominate as your maximum bid.

As we are hosting a continuous auction there will be an end date every day for a number of lots.

Bidding on each auction day will end after 20:00 GMT. If, however, a bid is made in the last 10 minutes of a lot, the time remaining on the lot will be reset to 10 minutes.

Your TWSA account will be debited with the hammer price plus any cost or fees that apply and you will be able to see this.

You can collect from our auction house.

Click here to see shipping rates.

For shipping, we use DPD, UPS and DHL. If you would like to use a specific courier please get in touch

We offer an optional risk-free loss and breakage cover for shipping at a cost of 3% (+VAT) of the hammer price. This policy is provided by The Whisky Shop Auctions and covers loss of items or breakage in transit. The policy does not cover any capsule/cork failure or any cosmetic damage to the bottle carton/tin/boxes or any damage to wax seals that occurs in transit. You can select this policy during the delivery step in the checkout process.

Orders sent by Standard Shipping without loss and breakage cover are covered only by our courier’s standard liability insurance, which includes loss of parcel but not breakage of glass. In the event of a breakage, we will enter a claim for compensation with the courier on your behalf. The claims process takes 7 days with the courier, after which we will be in contact with you. As compensation is not guaranteed, we recommend the additional loss and breakage cover for additional peace of mind.

Of course! Here at The Whisky Shop Auctions, you can store a particular item for up to 3 months free of charge. After 90 days, a charge of 2% of the hammer price will be applied for storage of another 90 days. If you wish to store longer please contact us by email at [email protected] or phone us on +44(0)141 427 2950.

Please see our delivery information for estimates based on your location.

Unfortunately, rogue bottles appear from time to time. We take great care to vet bottles received for sale and if, in our sole opinion, they are fake, forged, tampered with, or their authenticity is compromised in any way, we will reject them. If you buy a bottle through us and it turns out to be a fake we will pursue the seller on your behalf and, in any event, we will refund the price you paid plus costs.

Click here for our terms and conditions.