INTERNET WINE SHOP GOES LIVE

Published: 23 July, 2008

A wine website set up to help consumers compare supermarket price promotions has launched a new mail-order business, selling small producer wines at low prices but without any promotional discounts, because its readers are fed up with boring brands and supermarket pricing'. Wine-encore.com founder Martin Whitehead told Harpers that his site had received a lot of feedback in the past year from people looking for more individual wines than those offered by the supermarkets, but who are distrustful of the introductory case discounts offered by many mail-order companies because they are often followed by huge price hikes. Whitehead launched wine-encore-shop.com last week with a 150-bin wine list sourced through Great Western Wines in Bath and Roger Harris Wines in Norfolk. The list is divided into three price categories - up to 6, 6-8 and above 8 - to match key supermarket price points. Whitehead is able to offer the wines at the same price or lower than his suppliers because of his low margin. People who are used to shopping in a supermarket for their wine are nervous about going straight to a traditional wine merchant, so we fill that gap,' he said.

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