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Shopping for wine is now ranked as one of the most pleasurable retail experiences. Red wine is the second most popular item to shop for, out of all supermarket products, with champagne and sparkling wine coming fifth and white wine seventh.

The comprehensive 2016 Shopper Intelligence grocery report which monitored consumer shopping habits and tastes of shoppers across all the major supermarkets, found that wine ranked highly as both an enjoyable item to shop for and a product that gives consumers a high level of purchase satisfaction. Red wine was seen as the most enjoyable purchase (after deli counter cheese). The research was carried out on shoppers shopping in-store at the major supermarkets. Red wine is a predominantly planned category of purchase with 77% of shoppers who purchase red wine stating that they had planned to buy prior to shopping. Only 19% of these 77% of shoppers had a particular brand of red wine in mind prior to purchase with 16% of these actually buying the intended brand, signalling a conversion rate of 85% prior to purchase.

So what are the factors driving the current conversion rate? As a category with a high dwell time the wine aisle offers opportunities to engage the shopper and drive trade up. Red wine buyers prioritise value, quality, choices and offers and this is a category where shoppers feel it is important to spend time looking and exploring the options and are also willing to spend more for a better or different product. Promotions and in-store offers are also important to red wine shoppers, as many as 24%specifically planned to buy red wine that was on promotion/offer.

Chris Adkins, Director, Shopper Intelligence said: “Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.” - Alexander Fleming. The wise words of Alexander Fleming have clearly filtered down to UK shoppers with wine ranking highly in the “pleasurable retail experiences” category. It is clear from the above data that strong signage and promotional communications are needed, whilst there is also still huge potential for category growth by providing shoppers the opportunity to trade-up through a ‘good > better > best’ principle. “No longer confined to speciality shops, supermarkets have arguably democratised the wine buying process; taking it from an elitist activity to a more egalitarian process. The opportunity and growth potential for supermarkets is undeniable if they continue to invest in making the wine aisle an enjoyable place for shoppers to linger.”