Berry Bros has biggest online sales day ever

Last week UK wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd experienced its biggest day of digital sales in its history, as the Covid-19 lockdown drives consumers to order wine online.

Berry Bros & Rudd is a mail-order, online and bricks and mortar retailer of wines, beers and spirits

Writing on Linkedin on Friday, Luigi Barzini, who is head of sales and distributors at the historic mail-order wine merchant, said, “Yesterday we had the biggest day online in the history of www.bbr.com.”

Continuing, he wrote, “Today we will deliver 18,000 bottles and tomorrow this will increase to over 24,000 bottles.

Concluding he commented, “Thank you for supporting independent retailers in these difficult times.”

Clearly Berry Bros is benefitting from the fact that UK wine drinkers can’t go out to pubs, bars and restaurants during the lockdown, and may also be enjoying a short-term rise in disposable income for this reason, and the fact that many won’t be spending money on commuting either.

Also, with long queues to get into supermarkets, and often a lack of availability on wine for customers as retail staff prioritise re-stocking essentials, more drinkers are turning to specialist merchants with a strong digital presence, and the ability to deliver, to get their drinking needs.

As previously reported by db, last Saturday afternoon wine retailer Majestic’s website crashed following “unprecedented demand”, before reassuring consumers that it had “large volumes of stock and extra resources arriving in stores in the coming days”.

Although Majestic stores are closed, the chain is still selling wine for delivery through its site.

Meanwhile, last week it was announced that shops selling alcohol are to stay open in the UK as the government added off-licences to the list of businesses deemed “essential” during the lockdown.

db has contacted Berry Bros. & Rudd for further comment on the current demand for wine through its website.