Virgin Wines eyes profit growth surge to £100m
Virgin Wines, one of the UK’s leading online wine retailers, has announced a new growth strategy which aims to increase the company’s yearly revenue to £100m within five years. This would represent a substantial increase as the retailer's revenue for the 2024 financial year stood at £59m.
The retailer hopes to achieve this lofty goal through increasing customer acquisition among a suite of new strategic changes. The company also hopes to drive growth in its commercial partnerships which includes those with Moonpig, WH Smith and a recent deal with Ocado, as well as increased investment in its new Warehouse Wines brand. Warehouse Wines only offers wines under £10 to its customers and has seen £1m worth of revenue generated for the half year to the end of December 2024.
Also announced by Virgin Wines was an increase in profits before tax of 20% to £1.3m for the six-month period leading up to 27 December 2024, compared to the same period last year.
The retailer ended the six-month period with a total revenue of £34m, of which festive trading (the six-week period leading up to 27 December 2024) accounted for £13.5m of this revenue, or close to 40%. This represented a strengthened yuletide performance for Virgin Wines with revenue up 6.7% for this six-week period compared to the same period last year. December trading was up 9% year on year, delivering record sales for a single month for the company, outside of the Covid affected period.
Virgin Wines also saw a strong uptick in customers, with the retailer accounting a 29% increase in new customers for the six-month period. The customers it has acquired appear to be remaining loyal, with the 12-month rolling cancellation rate of WineBank, the Group’s main subscription offering, at an all-time low of 14.9%. Virgin’s WineBank service has the unique initiative of providing interest on customers monthly deposits.
Commenting on the promising growth figures, Jay Wright, CEO at Virgin Wines sees the company’s business plan as a winning formula: “We have introduced a number of new strategic initiatives to diversify our offering and enable us to appeal to as many potential customers as possible.
“Our Warehouse Wines value proposition continues to deliver positive results, while our Vineyard Collection range and the premium Australian Five O’clock Somewhere Wine Club showcase the unquestioned expertise of our Buying Team alongside our network of winemakers around the world.”
The healthy trading performance comes amidst change at the company, with Harpers having recently reported the promotion of Amanda Cherry to CFO and company secretary.
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