ArticlePublic health in practice (Oxford, England)2025
Age verification in alcohol online sales and delivery: results from a mystery shopping study in Estonia.
Article in Public health in practice (Oxford, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Objectives: As the current evidence on the adherence to age verification requirement in alcohol online sale and delivery is scarce and inconclusive, we studied the age verification rate of alcohol deliveries via courier and parcel machine services to evaluate the accessibility of alcohol to the minors in Estonia. Study design: Experimental study. Methods: We adapted the mystery shopping methodology to the context of alcohol distance sale in Estonia to study the age verification ratio defined as ID requests during alcohol distance sale deliveries via couriers and parcel machines. A stratified random sample of 110 test purchases was created based on mapping of alcohol vendors offering alcohol distance sales in Estonia. Test purchasers (n = 7) aged 18-19 years old were recruited for the study. In total, 91 test purchases were conducted in between August and September 2024. Descriptive statistics and prevalence ratio from crude and adjusted log-binomial regression models were used to compare the ID validation by key test purchase characteristics. Results: In total, 81.3 % of orders were delivered without ID validation. Although crude proportions of ID validation at the delivery varied for several test purchase characteristics, statistically significantly (p = 0.038) difference was only found for the delivery method. Courier deliveries had substantially lower age verification rate with 87.5 % of orders delivered without ID validation compared to 66.7 % in parcel machine deliveries. After adjustment to other test purchase characteristics, the corresponding prevalence ratio was 1.36 (95 % CI 1.02-1.82). Conclusions: The findings indicate that online alcohol sales are accompanied with inconsistent and ineffective age verification practices that may increase alcohol availability to minors. The study highlights the need for stricter regulations and enforcement to prevent minors from accessing alcohol through online sales and delivery services.
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