Impact of Covid-19 on Online Wine Retail

How has Covid-19 affected the wine trade? With lockdowns, the hospitality industry was hit hard with restaurants, bars and other venues closed leading to no sales. However the knock on effect of this was that online sales of wine have increased. One of the most noteable increase of activities introduced over lockdown was the use of Zoom and online wine tastings over Zoom which enabled people to enjoy and taste wines virtually with other people. Everyone still want to enjoy a glass or bottle of wine and are doing this more at home with family or online with friends.

With places starting to open up and normality beginning to resume will this trend be a short term effect or a longer lasting shift in buying wine online? Lots of wineries have noticed an increase of direct online buying of their wines. Local wine merchants have needed to adapt and offer online wine sales in order to survive. There is a definite interest in the larger variety of wine to choose from online rather than going to your local supermarket so there is a real feeling that buying wine online is a trend that will be here to stay. Here is an interesting infographic that shows the impact of Covid-19 on online wine retail with  research provided by 8wines.com.