Wine.com reports revenue reached $130 million in 2018, and has grown 15-20% per year for the last several years. After the launch of its mobile app mid-2017, mobile revenue grew over 90% and now represents 30% of the total. Consistent with this trend, millennial consumers now make up one-third of Wine.com shoppers and are the fastest-growing segment in revenue, up 33% over the last 12 months.
The company sold 38,000 different wines in the last year, from 5,500 wineries – relying on 250 wholesalers to provide selection breadth and inventory depth.
“Mobile is the best thing to ever happen to wine retailing,” said Rich Bergsund, Wine.com CEO. “It puts the power of wine scores, write-ups, videos and our live chat experts right in the hands of our customers — helping them discover and enjoy wine with confidence, wherever they are.”
“Millennials will not put up with the dreaded ‘wall of wine’ at retail,” said Mike Osborn, Wine.com Founder and Executive Vice President. “Unlike paper towels or kitty litter, every winery has a story — and our job is to tell those stories, from thousands of wineries, to millions of consumers.”
Danny Brager, Senior Vice President of Nielsen’s Beverage Alcohol Team, told Wine.com’s ninth annual Growth Summit that effective immediately, Wine.com is sharing its online wine purchase data with Nielsen, providing Nielsen’s clients with a comprehensive view into the previously opaque online wine channel.
In comparing Wine.com with the U.S. wine industry, Brager gave Wine.com top marks for its selection, broad and balanced growth across generations of wine consumers and its premium price point ($31 average selling price versus $10 for the industry as a whole).
“Wine.com has built an impressive e-commerce business in the wine industry, and we are excited to be working with this team,” says Danny Brager, Senior Vice President of the Beverage Alcohol practice at Nielsen. “The addition of Wine.com sales data to Nielsen’s Beverage alcohol and e-commerce datasets will allow players in the beverage alcohol space to easily benchmark and identify growth opportunities across more channels, as well as measure, predict and activate on insights to improve performance within the wine category.”