{"id":22801,"date":"2021-10-29T08:18:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T08:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/?p=22801"},"modified":"2022-04-05T13:40:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T13:40:33","slug":"virgin-wines-stocked-up-for-christmas-a-year-early-to-avoid-disruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/2021\/10\/29\/virgin-wines-stocked-up-for-christmas-a-year-early-to-avoid-disruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Wines stocked up for Christmas a year early to avoid disruption"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\nVirgin Wines has said it started stocking up for this Christmas last year in a bid to avoid supply disruption as it posted a sales jump in its maiden annual figures.<\/p>\n<p>Shares in the online wine retailer made gains on Thursday morning after the trading update.<\/p>\n<p>The company told shareholders it is \u201cconfident\u201d it remains well placed to continue to offer customers a full range of drinks from around the world after taking action to avoid supply chain disruption.<\/p>\n<p>Virgin said it is well prepared for the key Christmas period after starting preparations last year to \u201cmitigate any issues around lack of stock availability\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that despite wider economic challenges, including rising inflation, consumer demand has remained \u201cbuoyant\u201d and its stock levels are \u201cin excellent shape\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Bosses said they are \u201coptimistic and excited\u201d about the year ahead, as they stressed the firm is trading in line with expectations for the new financial year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/2021\/09\/06\/hardys-wine-shortages\/\">Hardys owner warns of wine shortages by Christmas<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It hailed 13.3 per cent sales growth in the quarter to September, against the same period last year, after a 10.7 per cent rise in customer numbers.<\/p>\n<p>It came as the group reported that revenues jumped by 30 per cent to \u00a373.6 million for the year to June, compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, company pre-tax profits dropped to \u00a31.7 million from \u00a32.8 million in the previous year after being weighed down by \u00a33.5 million in exceptional costs related to its stock market float.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFull-year 2021 has been a transformational year for the group, starting a new chapter on the public markets and emerging in a stronger financial position,\u201d Virgin Wines chief executive officer Jay Wright said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus this year has been on acquiring increased numbers of new customers, converting them to become long-term advocates of Virgin Wines, whilst maximising the loyalty of our existing customers and, in turn, driving growth in our overall customer base.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am delighted that all of these objectives were met and that all our core trading channels have seen substantial year-on-year growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFollowing this milestone year, I look forward to working with our stakeholders over the coming 12 months to maintain this exciting momentum and drive the business further towards achieving its significant potential.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shares were 5.4 per cent higher in early trading on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><em>with PA Wires<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/subscribe-to-newsletter\/\" data-ol-has-click-handler=\"\">Click here to sign up to Grocery Gazette\u2019s free daily email newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virgin Wines has said it started stocking up for this Christmas last year in a bid to avoid supply disruption as it posted a sales jump in its maiden annual figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":22802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[154,4869],"tags":[1922,6948,2170,4804,1009,6947,2119],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22803,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22801\/revisions\/22803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}