Marketplace and Modernization changes

Click here to complete claims training.

 

In 2023, the provincial government announced the modernization of the marketplace to create more convenience and choice for consumers. In addition to more retailers selling alcohol, it was announced that LCBO will become the exclusive wholesaler for all retail, bars and restaurants selling alcohol, and a new ‘cost-plus’ wholesale pricing would be developed that was consistent for all retailers.

At the same time, LCBO has embarked on a multi-year program called Future State Modernization (FSM) that will strengthen our IT systems, and streamline our business processes, improving our operations for our company and our stakeholders.  

Staying updated on Future State Modernization Release R1b

This page provides a weekly update on key known issues related to the launch and update of several LCBO systems on April 1, as part of LCBO’s Future State Modernization. 

It includes the status of key known issues and the work underway to resolve them, assuring hospitality licensees have the latest information. Transparency is important to us, as is your feedback. If you experience issues, not reflected on this page, please continue to connect directly with your Account Manager.

Ongoing improvements: As of July 17, 2026

Shopping in store:

• We are in the process of rolling out a solution in all LCBO stores to streamline your in-store checkout experience, eliminating the manual pricing override process that has been in place since April. It will be active in all stores by early next week. Thank you for your patience as we worked to implement a solution.
 

Orders and notifications:

• You are now able to see which, if any, products in your cart are resulting in “restricted” messaging, allowing you to remove affected products from your cart for a smoother checkout experience. Over the coming weeks, you should experience less instances of ”restricted” messaging in your cart.

• Some orders are taking longer than normal to deliver – we appreciate your patience. As a reminder, we are reprocessing outstanding (aged) orders to ensure that orders are moving and the status is accurately recorded in our systems. This may result in email notifications for shipping or delivery confirmations for orders that you have already received, or for orders that remain outstanding. If you already have received your order, please ignore these notifications.

• There have been some instances of price differences of certain products in wholesale.lcbo.com. We have removed affected products from lcbo.com and wholesale.lcbo.com until the issue has been resolved. Affected customers will be contacted directly to process reconciliations.

Invoices:

• Some licensee customers have not been receiving shipment confirmation emails for LCBO-fulfilled orders, and emails that are received do not include necessary invoicing information for reconciliation purposes such as invoice number and company name. Both of these issues will be resolved by the end of July. We have issued invoices manually this week, if you still haven’t received your invoice, please email lco@lcbo.com.

Inventory:

• We continue to experience discrepancies in our online inventory and actual inventory/product availability. We are prioritizing this issue for resolution.

Claims:

• If your claim has been denied, you will now receive an automated email from LCBO specifying why your claim was rejected.

• Some hospitality licensees are still experiencing issues when submitting a claim. If you encounter an issue when submitting your claim, please contact your Account Manager.

Claims reminders:

• You can only submit your claim when the order is in “Complete status”.

• When signing the BOL, if you are unable to count at the time, please write “Subject to Count” on the BOL. You have 72 hours to ensure that the shipment is correct. If you experience an issue submitting a claim for a shortage, you must email your account manager with 72 hours of delivery.

Reminders

Onboarding:

• It may take longer than normal for newly-licensed hospitality licensees to onboard with LCBO as we work through a backlog of data to be updated. While we work to get these customers online access as soon as possible, we encourage them to shop our retail stores. Our store employees can put a special measure in place so your in-store orders can be processed going forward.

Order administration:

• We have implemented a solution to allow corporate office users to utilize the same email address for multiple customers. While this solution still requires separate profiles/logins for each customer, we hope this alleviates the challenge of needing a separate email address for each. We continue to evaluate a more fulsome solution to enable order administration for multiple customers under one user profile and will provide an update when available.

Inventory visibility:

• We recognize that LCBO inventory availability is no longer visible until checkout, which may result in additional time spent reconciling your cart.

• While we’ve enabled dropshipping with nearly 300 suppliers – increasing choice and flexibility for licensees – this change means our system is not currently able to validate inventory across all supplying sources throughout the buying journey. We are actively listening to your feedback and will continue to explore opportunities to improve your experience.

Who do I contact if I am experiencing issues?

Please reach out to licensee@lcbo.com.