Majestic Wine says 10.9% of its UK retail sales now take place online. The update came as the multichannel retailer announced online sales of £12.9m in the first half of its financial year, 12.3% up on the same time last year.
The retailer announced total group sales of £133.8m in the 26 weeks to September 29, up by 2.8% on the same time last year. Like-for-like sales, which strip out the effect of store openings and closures, also grew by 2.8%. But pre-tax profits came in at £8.5m, £1m down on last year, after the cost of investment.
Chief executive Steve Lewis said: “Majestic has a compelling proposition with a differentiated model, strong customer service ethos and a clear strategy to deliver growth. The 2015 financial year is one of investing to put in place the building blocks to deliver future growth and shareholder value and we are progressing to plan.”
Those investments included work to create a single view of customers, across online and in-store, enabling it to analyse transactional data in order to “understand better how customer interact with us across our entire multichannel offering.” By combining this data with customer and market research, the retailer has “identified opportunities for us to further develop our proposition and better target our audience.” The retailer is also investing in staffing, including its in-house multichannel team, stores and customer-facing technologies. It has appointed a multichannel customer relationship management agency.