Morrisons launches new wine website

Morrisons is aiming to grow their wine category by £100millon within three years with the launch of its new wine website, morrisonscellar.com.

The supermarket chain says the website will offer “a significantly increased range of wines and an interactive tool to help customers find wines they will enjoy”.

The new wine website is Morrisons first move into online retailing and it will be supported by “a new in-store wine experience” beginning in 2013.

Simon Harrison, strategy partner for Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC, said: “Morrisons Cellar is completely different to any of our competitors’ online wine offerings.

“The initiative was developed in response to a 10,000-strong survey in which the nation’s wine drinkers explained their frustrations with the way wine is currently sold in the UK – we’ve listened to this and put into action the learnings.”

One key feature of Morrisons Cellar will be the “Taste Test”, which has been exclusively licensed to Morrisons for the grocery sector by developers Bibendum. This test asks customers three non-wine related questions and then assigns them a flavour profile based on their preferences for sweetness or bitterness.

The customer is then given a number between 0 and 12, which they can match against wines online and in-store.

Wine buyer, Trish Scurfield said: “The Taste Test offers a new and exciting challenge for our wine buying team. Having looked at customer profiles and ranges we discovered that whilst 30% of the UK population has a ‘sweet’ profile, the in-store offering within this profile was only 10-15%.

“We have looked in detail at the range across all price points and all flavour profiles to achieve a more comprehensive wine range which will help guide the bemused consumer to not only find a wine they’ll enjoy, but also the confidence to try a wine they haven’t tried before.”