A new online wine business that combines The Wine Society, Cracka Wines and Wine Growers Direct has officially launched today.
The launch follows Australia’s first wine club, The Wine Society, merging with the Online Liquor Group, owner of Cracka Wines, in 2017.
Heinrich told WBM: “The bedding down of this merger has unlocked immediate scale and synergies, offering both customer bases access to a diverse range of high quality wines and an ever-improving level of value and service.
“With online being the fastest growing sales channel in Australia, and representing only 4% of liquor sales, we are well placed to really step up our offer and service this rapidly growing market better.”
The Wine Collective has a customer base of 400,000, with more than 900 wines on offer and aspirations to become a $50million-plus business.
Chief executive Lloyd Heinrich told the Australian Financial Review the group is targeting sales growth of 15-20% after receiving a capital injection from West Australian businessman Peter Fogarty.
The Wine Collective will focus on championing high quality small and medium sized wine growers because it cannot match the dominant position of the Dan Murphy’s online business.
“The big guys really focus on the big producers,” Heinrich said.
Among the brands on offer will be Vasse Felix, Jeanneret, Tahbilk, Geoff Merrill, Giant Steps and Tyrrell’s.
The Wine Collective site has a strong video component designed to bring its wines and the people behind them to life.
“We want to personalise and modernise the world of wine for our customers, while continuing to unearth great wines and taking our customers on a journey through wine; an objective that Dr Gilbert Phillips wanted to achieve when he established The Wine Society back in 1946,” Heinrich explained to WBM.
