Off-premise retailers are optimistic about overall holiday sales despite concerns about Champagne, which is facing high demand and limited supply, according to a survey for Drizly. Seventy-three percent of retailers surveyed expect sales to meet or exceed last year’s lofty holiday benchmarks. Of that same group, 80% are at least slightly concerned about Champagne supply running short.
More than half of retailers polled expect at least 10% of holiday purchases to be made with the intent of gifting. Purchasing trends on Drizly strongly support this theory. Gifts purchased on the platform last December rose to 20% of overall sales, and gift share has risen by 66% year over year in 2021. What’s more, consumers typically spend 120% more per item when sending a gift.
Retailers are overwhelmingly optimistic about CBD- and cannabis-infused products, with over 50% of those surveyed saying that they have the industry’s highest growth potential. Among factors influencing these attitudes may be the growing ranks of states that are legalizing recreational cannabis.
Meanwhile, retailers are increasingly embracing non-alcoholic beverage alternatives as well, which ranked second among products with the greatest growth potential (26%). Recent data points in the same direction. Ninety percent of retailers on the Drizly platform now carry non-alcoholic beer, wine and other alternatives, and share of non-alcoholic products on Drizly has increased by 120% since 2020.
Asked which spirits they plan to sell more of next year, 80% of retailers pointed to tequila, on par with bourbon, and 40 points ahead of vodka. Scotch’s renaissance and Japanese whiskey’s methodical growth are poised to continue, with retailers ranking the two whiskey subcategories third and fourth, respectively, for likely increased stocking.
These attitudes logically follow from sales trends on Drizly over the past few years, when tequila’s share of spirits sales has grown by 13%, while vodka’s share has declined by 2%.4 If tequila’s trajectory continues, sales of the Mexican mainstay may surpass vodka at some point next year on the platform, driven by the growing influence of millennial and older Gen Z consumers.
Retailers surveyed by Drizly plan to devote the most incremental shelf space to ready-to-drink cocktails next year, leaving hard seltzer in third place, behind craft beer. And when asked which of those three categories was earmarked for less shelf space, hard seltzer was cited most often (by 23% of retailers), while
craft beer got the biggest vote of confidence, cited by only 8% of respondents for planning to stock less in 2022