Online wine retailers profit from corona

It is no longer a secret that online shopping experienced an unprecedented boom in the corona year 2020. Especially food and other every-day goods saw a surge in demand in eCommerce as contact bans and curfews were imposed and a general atmosphere of insecurity and willingness to minimize risks settled across the globe. Even though supermarkets and retailers of basic supplies were unaffected by store closures, people increasingly turned to online providers to shop for basic supplies. But it was not only online supermarkets and providers of every-day essentials that profited from the coronavirus pandemic, specialist online stores for luxury foods were apparently also among the pandemic winners. During the months of strict lockdown that people in many countries lived through during the past year 2020, a widespread habit across large parts of the society was also cut down on: Going out. As the hotel, restaurant and catering sector was forced to close, the casual after-work drink with colleagues, eating out with friends or a romantic dinner with exquisite wines were no longer possible. Many did not want to do without their culinary delights, and instead of going out decided to raise their glasses at home – this is what the sales numbers of online wine retailers suggest:

The two large online wine stores wine.com and nakedwines.com registered significantly increased year-on-year growth figures in 2020 according to ecommerceDB.com estimates. Both stores had already seen solid growth in the past, but were able to accelerate their net sales growth during the pandemic year 2020. nakedwines.com registered year-on-year growth rates of 19% and 11% in the years 2018 and 2019, respectively, reaching a net sales total of US$218.1 million in 2019. Year-on-year growth almost doubled in 2020 to 25%, which results in total 2020 net sales of US$272.5 million for nakedwines.com. Competitor wine.com even topped these figures and almost tripled year-on-year net sales growth from 25% in 2019 to an amazing 73% in 2020. This means that wine.com has overtaken nakedwines.com in terms of total net sales. While wine.com still generated US$53.1 million less in net sales in 2019 than nakedwines.com, the former is now in the lead, with 2020 total net sales of US$285.0 million. Experts in the business assume that online demand for wine will continue to be high also in post-pandemic times, as many of those who ordered for the first time during the pandemic are likely to stay as customers. Thus, both stores are likely to increase their net sales further through 2021.

Visit our news area for additional content around the topic of eCommerce.

February 2021