I have intentionally avoided writing about the Coronavirus yet, it is a topic that cannot be avoided.  Especially this weekend, as it is not often that an issue becomes so widespread that it threatens our way of life. Equally, the impact on our business and the greater hospitality industry has been profound. Without stating the obvious, July marks the second half of the year, which provides the perfect point in time to step back, evaluate our year so far and to share how my team and I have coped during the lockdown and to what affect the pandemic has had on our wine company.

Vast swathes of our nation went into lockdown on the evening of 23 March. I recall vividly that evening as I was preparing for my final beekeeping lesson. Instead, I sat riveted, glued to my television screen watching our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson address our nation which was an extraordinary scene. The following morning, I drove the same thirty miles to my office but, I was alone on the roads. I was concerned for my team – how were they feeling with the sense of the unknown and are they feeling anxious with the eerie silence as they drove to their place of work.

That morning was a blur as adjusting to unfamiliar circumstances was strange to say the least. The hospitality industry was forced to shut down with the direct impact on the wine industry being profoundly damaging. By choice, this is not an area of sales we have canvassed – the competition for wine list space or entire listings is fierce and a fool’s game in my opinion. Respectfully, those servicing the restaurants, clubs, bars, desirable accounts such as Wimbledon and the theatres along with all major sporting events are far from foolish, but they operate within a broken model which I have previously covered.

It is still early days for sections of our industry to fully assess the level of damage yet, we are now seeing the fallout post COVID-19 lockdown with Fields, Morris & Verdin consulting its staff over the future of the company. FMV is a significant company which represents around £40 million of Berry Brothers & Rudd’s £188 million turnover (BBR purchased FMV in 2003). We have worked with FMV for many years as their list of agencies is very impressive (Ridge and Dog Point to name two). They have always favoured their restaurant customers with much of their list out of bounds to independent wine merchants or allocations so tiny, they are pointless to buy. I am sad for the staff as many have been with FMV for a very long time. Ordinarily, most would be re-employed swiftly but I fear this will not be the case until the hospitality industry returns fully (if that is possible). I believe FMV will not be the first casualty which is a worrying outlook…

My team and I were sitting on the morning of the 24th sipping our tea and coffee and wondering if we would be OK as a business. Like many, we have worked tirelessly to build ‘The Vinorium’ brand and reputation however, fate was out of our hands. International trade sales to Asia had declined significantly due to their own pandemic struggles, with the team and I adjusting accordingly – Would domestic and international private customer sales follow the same pattern? Which would be perfectly understandable.

In short, the answer was a resounding no as our inboxes were filling and filling at a much faster rate than normal with online orders, which amazed us all. Many industries must readjust their financial expectation for this year and perhaps several to come, but and as I write (the 2 July) life at The Vinorium is incredibly positive and our future brighter than ever. I am blessed to be surrounded by an incredible, agile team and to have friends and customers who believe The Vinorium is their first point of call when they are seeking wine. The faith you have in us and our wine selection is truly humbling. As ever, and from the bottom of Team Vinorium’s very big heart, we are so grateful to have you all as customers.

We have enjoyed a tremendous run of years with our sales for 2017, 2018 and 2019 reaching £12.130 million and profits after tax standing handsomely around £2.950 million. We have been awarded 2018 and 2019 IWC & Decanter Australian Wine Merchant of the Year which we are immensely proud of. Sadly, and due to the COVID-19 restrictions, there is no IWC entry this year – we submitted our Decanter entry on Wednesday and look forward to sharing the judges’ decision mid-September.

The first quarter started well with the occasional bump in the road which you would expect. Sales to our global ‘private’ customer base increased slightly on 2019 versus a £55,000 drop in trade sales. Our gross profit dropped by £5,582 which is a smidgen in the grand scheme of things nonetheless, it certainly keeps you focused for quarter two. Trade sales and particularly to customers in Hong Kong, Macau and China reduced significantly with only the tail end of a large Clarendon Hills Astralis parcel selling.

March was a super month. So much so, we reported stronger sales compared to Christmas 2019 which is unheard of. Then, we entered the most extraordinary period of sales in our history which I am delighted to share with you. Before I reveal, it is worth noting that month on month, 2019 was our most successful year in terms of number of sales and revenue through our e-commerce website.

We operate a physical shop however, we are e-commerce specialists and it has taken many years to get to this level. The investment (both in terms of time and finances) is staggering and certainly makes you question one’s own commercial sanity. At the core of our company is a passionate team that love wine and who love to share stories about their wonderful collection of wine producers. We enjoy sharing our tasting notes and tales of day to day life however, this sadly would not cover our bills.

We analyse everything we do without losing the personal touch. Behind the scenes is the world of search engine optimisation (SEO as it is commonly referred to), which is the art of organically ranking high on a search engine without paying for it (Google Ads). Fundamentally, it is the process of optimising your online content so that search engines show you as a top result for searches of certain keywords. For example, open Google and type ‘Standish Lamella.’ Hopefully, the first two listings are given to The Vinorium – one listing for the 2017 and one for the 2018. We do not profess to understand Google’s algorithms and the level of alleged SEO expert advice is quite staggering with much of it costing a small fortune and yielding little if any return.

Time is the key along with unique content. Spending hours per day, every working day of the year will provide a degree of success. Of course, having a great list of winemakers will help too however, what do you do if many are unknown to your particular audience (as many of our producers were to you)? That’s the fun of spreading the word – telling the world that you are working with someone special and unheard of outside their domestic customer base. This takes time but the rewards are fabulous and not necessarily financial as sharing great wines with friends, new and old, is a joy in itself. But, and to bring back commerciality, here’s a little insight into the importance of our SEO work.   

I will use the same ‘Lamella’ example. Many of you will be aware that we are Dan and Nicole’s (Standish) UK agent and we have an excellent relationship with them both. Our 2018 collection was substantial and came to some $400,000 which and as with all our winemakers, we paid in advance of shipping which is super rare in our industry and clearly favourable to our hardworking producers. Lamella is rare and as I penned in our weekend read 117, is fast becoming Australia’s most sought after wine. We recently received a fabulous email from a customer in Australia who declared, “Standish wines are unicorns here in Australia.”

Remarkably, online visitors from Australia have risen significantly during the past six months with 3,300 users visiting various pages on our website. We have received 70 orders from Australia, which I accept is not a huge number, but given our respective locations is significant. Some orders were from Aussie’s sending their loved ones gifts during the lockdown period and some contained cases of 2018 Standish Lamella which we are now shipping all the way back to Australia. In fact, our Standish page has been visited 10,298 times this year. You just wait until November when Sarah Ahmed’s (writing for Decanter) huge spread is published – I will be sure to reveal the results this yields. This week, international trade demand is returning and guess what every email is requesting? Lamella of course… Some traders we know, many we do not and that is down to our SEO work, as tireless as it is…  

Precisely £879,922 of wine was sold during the months of 1 April to 30 June, thumping the same period 2019. As declared, 2019 was a fantastic year however, and despite the dreadful repercussions of the pandemic, we have arrived at the halfway point some £190,000 up on 2019 which is a magnificent position to be in, and of course, thanks to you all. So, let’s dig a little deeper and share more of the statistics…

Google organic sales increased by 88% and produced £56,923 in value. We keep organic Zalto sales separate, which and despite my rather glum news towards the footer (keep your focus here!) sales increased by a staggering 276%. Total Zalto sales for the first six months totalled £48,991 equating to 756 units (individual or six pack). We do receive small amounts of orders via Bing and Yahoo but and without sounding unappreciative, they are too insignificant to mention in detail.

Our weekend read inspires which is wonderful to see. It is often the home where we share stories from our winemakers and musings from our HQ. Sales have increased to £103,084 and our mid-week offers / highlights have yielded £80,285 yet another increase over 2019.  Our existing customers have been incredibly generous and are popping back more regularly with sales increasing by 54%. You kindly placed 1021 website orders without a prod from the team and I (600 in 2019). You spent £201,445 of your hard earned money during this period with an average order value of £197.30.

Our top fifteen customers (non-trade) spent a whopping £90,072 with an average order value of £437.00 which is truly staggering.

We’ve gone one step further and were able to ascertain that your average bottle spend was £50.00. Of course, we would never reveal who you are however, I believe we should create a special, annual club… I will have a think and will revert personally.

We have a mysterious group of new customers who spent £47,394. We call these ‘direct’ as they simply type in ‘The Vinorium’ and land on our website. Perhaps a recommendation or they saw our name on the back of a wine label. My explanation is as elusive as how they found us!  Talking of new customers - 904 traceable, new customer orders have been received, netting a total revenue of £149,916 which is a joy to see. Some were destined for corporate Zoom tastings which became all the rage six weeks back, a healthy proportion were gifts for loved ones and the remainder just seemed to love our Aussie range. Magda and I have been busy too with combined sales of £1,008,481.

All in all, website orders increased by 62% (we do not advertise or outsource any work) and the total number of parcels leaving our HQ (not our bonded warehouse) saw a jump of 52%. During lockdown, the UK turned to the internet for home deliveries. The pressure on the delivery network and for those poor drivers working within it, was and still is enormous. At times, drivers have more parcels to deliver than there are hours in the day. Our preferred courier, DHL delivered 96.28% of our parcels on time which I think is bloody marvellous given the circumstances. Front line workers should be given medals – our network of delivery drivers should be awarded a serious pay rise and more respect.