Wine ecommerce boom starts to slow

The global boom in wine ecommerce appears to be slowing, new data from Wine-searcher has revealed, with the number of people searching for wine online slowing down following a surge earlier in the year.

The data shows that global searches for wine on the wine platform has slowed down in recent weeks, down from 45% year-on-year in June, to around 17% in July (compared to the previous year). Spirits also fell, from around 111% in April and 57% in June year-on-year to around 7%, it said.

China saw the largest falls, with searches for wine down 26% in the last two weeks of July, 24% for spirits and 38% for beer – a similar trend was born out by sales, with the rate of click-through falling by around 53 % for wine in the same two week period, compared to the previous year, by far the biggest fall in the main wine markets, Wine Searcher pointed out.
Overall, the click-through rate, in which people bought wine online, rather than merely looking at it, increased by around 6% globally in the last two weeks of July.

In the UK, this figure was up 20%, reflecting the healthy increase in wine searches, up 25% in both wine and spirits, compared to the same period in 2019, while beer searches rose 47%. Bourbon stood out, with searches up 47%.

By contrast, wine performance flattened in North American, with searches for wine up only 10% across the market, with 9% in the US, led by red wine and click through of only 5%. Spirit searches were more buoyant however, rising 25% year on year, again with Bourbon in front, mirrored by strong sales, with click throughs of 24%, led by whiskey, tequila and gin. Despite beer searches int the US falling 12%, sale leads rose, up 27%.

In other global markets, Africa saw strong growth off a small base, up 73% year on year, while South America also saw searches up 38%. .