Online wine retail is about to be given a major shake up with France's largest retailer of online wine, Vente Privée announcing its expansion into the UK. The launch of the online sales website LINK www.vente-privee.com is a move into an incredibly competitive but lucrative market currently worth around £800 million annually.
Founded in 2001, the online retailer has used a 'flash sales' model to sell the excess inventory of premium fashion brands such as Chloe, Calvin Klein and Diesel. Since 2006 the site has offered heavy discounts on premium wine and spirits brands to last year sell €36 million worth of sales to its 18 million members across Europe.
Following a series of test sales, Vente Privée will bring wine sales to the UK this month with an aim to run at least 8 wine sales a month. Sales last from between 3 to 5 days with a discount given of between 30%-40% off retail price. Sale items can only be viewed and purchased by members of the site and registration is free. The UK site already boasts more than 600,000 members, a figure it will need to increase in order to compete with the UK's largest wine retailer, Tesco which, as of 2013 has over 15m active users.
At a launch event held last week at Compagnie des vins surnaturels in Covent Garden, Vente Privée co-founder Xavier Court told Hot Dinners of the company’s expansion into wine and of their plans to make brands such as Chapoutier, Louis Latour and Albert Bichot household names for consumers in the UK.
'Our customers are large consumers of wine and in 2013 in France we sold 3.3m bottles which averaged around £11 a bottle', an impressive figure given the average cost of a bottle of wine in the UK is just over £5.
'We work in close collaboration with the wine estates and our team of professional tasters carefully taste and select every wine that we sell' Court said. 'It is the wineries and brands who are our main clients and it is through our website that we not only sell their products to thousands but also exposes their brand to millions who visit our site every day to view our flash sales'.
The site has diversified in recent years and now offers sales on toys, sports equipment, music and even travel. Whether the sale of restaurant experiences is also part of their plans for the UK site remains to be seen.
Follow Louis Fernando on Twitter at @tuckandvine and on his blog Tuck & Vine.
