Wine merchant Majestic posted a small rise in profits today after a year in which it said sales of English sparkling wine showed a significant increase.
The retailer, which has plans to grow its 193-strong store estate to around 330 locations in the UK, posted pre-tax profits of £23.7 million for the year to April 1, an increase of £500,000 on a year earlier.
Sales of still wines from the Rhone, Argentina, Italy and Spain showed good growth, while Majestic also reported a big jump in sales of sparkling wine from English vineyards.
Total sales were down 2.1% to £274.4 million in the year, reflecting a cut in its exposure to the wholesale drinks market and last summer's unseasonable weather, which caused the cancellation of a large number of outdoor events.
The number of customers who made purchases in the year still rose by 56,000 on a year earlier to 624,000, while the average spend per transaction remained level at £128. The average bottle price on still wine rose to £7.56.
Chief executive Steve Lewis said: "Majestic is in excellent shape and has made good progress with the four key elements of our future growth strategy - new stores, business customers, ecommerce and fine wine."
New stores were opened during the year in Northallerton, Esher, Queensferry Road in Edinburgh, Witney, Basingstoke, Falmouth, Stroud, Ludlow, Uttoxeter, Alton, Sudbury, King's Lynn, Lymington, Dorking, Crawley and Gerrards Cross.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article