Direct-to-consumer online wine retailer Virgin Wines UK has revealed the loss of around £800,000 in sales after having to move its Christmas delivery deadline as the result of labour shortages caused by staff illness/self-isolation due to Omicron.
“The effect of the labour shortages was that the business had to ‘cut off’ for Christmas delivery two days earlier than planned to ensure all customers received their orders, negatively affecting sales by approximately £800k,” the company said in its trading update this week. However, it said the group had “largely been able to mitigate these pressures through highly efficient marketing, disciplined customer acquisition and strict control of costs”.
In its trading update for the six months ended 31 December 2021, the company revealed total revenue of £40.5m, in line with the previous year’s performance and up 55% vs H1 2020. Subscription revenue accounted for 79% of D2C sales in the period, up from 69% in H1 2021. However due to the uncertain trading and macro environment, coupled with what it said were numerous headwinds in relation to increased cost pressure, the group warned that revenue and profit for the year ending June 2022 will be slightly below consensus market estimates.
Jay Wright, chief executive officer at Virgin Wines, said: “As expected, the trading environment has evolved considerably over recent months and given strong prior year comparatives, we have worked hard to maintain encouraging growth from our core sales channels, whilst maintaining strict discipline around our customer acquisition and our cost control.”
