Aldi to launch online wine service

Aldi has announced that it is to launch an online wine service delivering wine by the case as it revealed record sales of almost £7 billion last year.

Aldi is set to launch its online wine service in the first three months of 2016

The supermarket chain, now the fastest-growing grocery retailer in the UK, said it will begin selling wine by the case online “from early next year”, offering customers home delivery and collection from third-party locations.

In the past year the company has been attempting to attract new, higher-spending customers in-store, introducing 150 premium and “Specially Selected” lines including its “Exquisite Collection” of wines. More than 1,000 bottles of wine from the Aldi Exquisite Collection are sold per hour, with year-on-year sales up 40 per cent. 

Earlier this year the company launched a new range of “fine” wines priced at £9.99 – twice the average bottle price for wines sold in the supermarket – in a bid to attract shoppers who might usually buy their wine at Waitrose and M&S.

Aldi will sell all of its in-store wines on the internet and some wines will only be available online.

The company’s new online wine service will be rolled out as part of an e-commerce drive which the company hopes will bring the brand to thousands more consumers.

Matthew Barnes, CEO of Aldi UK & Ireland, said: “Our launch online is another exciting chapter in our story. This will enable us to introduce the Aldi brand and some of our best-selling, best-quality and best-value products to thousands more customers across the UK.”

The news comes as Aldi announced group sales had increased to £6.89bn in 2014 from £5.27bn the previous financial year – an increase of 31% and the equivalent of £31m in extra sales revenue every week during the year.

The business – which opened its first UK store in 1990 – has more than doubled its sales in the past three years alone. It is now the UK’s sixth-biggest grocer.

Aldi currently operates 598 stores in the UK and employs 28,000 people. The company plans to open a further 65 new stores in the course of this year.

The drinks business recently reported how the Aldi brand had become more valuable than Tesco.