Wine clubs attract ‘big-spending’ customers

New data in Roy Morgan’s Alcohol Retail Report shows the average wine clubs customer spends nearly $160 on packaged alcohol in an average week.

This is twice the average spend of a duty free customer and more than three times the spending of customer of a supermarket, hotel bottle shop or independent retailer.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said: "Our data looks at how much the customers of various alcohol retailers spend each week on packaged alcohol. Here, wine clubs come out on top, followed by duty free stores and supermarket owned standalone retailers."

The report shows supermarket alcohol retailers hold the largest market share (40.5%) of the total packaged alcohol market, increasing their share by 3.1% points compared to a year ago. Roy Morgan noted that these retailers have been well placed to reap the greatest benefit from any additional packaged alcohol sales during COVID-19 shutdown restrictions.

A total of 40.5% (5,311,000) of the Australians who purchase packaged alcohol in an average four-week period buy from a supermarket retailer such as BWS, Liquorland, ALDI or IGA.

This is followed by supermarket owned stand-alone retailers on 35.6% (4,130,000); independent retailers on 10.7% (1,434,000); hotel bottle shops on 7.8% (1,335,000); wine clubs on 5.1% (400,000) and duty-free on 0.3% (117,000).

The findings come from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey, Australia’s most trusted source of consumer insights, derived from interviews with 50,000 Australians each year.

“Over the past twelve months, supermarket alcohol retailers have increased their market share by 3.1% points, making them the clear leader in the broader packaged alcohol market. They are also the only group of stores to have significantly increased market share over the past year.

“An important development within the packaged alcohol market is the impending spin-off of the Woolworths-owned Endeavour Group which controls both Dan Murphy’s and BWS. The separation was originally set to occur this year but has now been put off until 2021 due to COVID-19. If it goes ahead then as planned, it will significantly change the market dynamics in Australia’s competitive packaged alcohol market.”