Majestic soothes Brexit price rise fears after record sales

The boss of Majestic Wines today allayed fears of Brexit price rises, saying consumers would see only “microscopically small” changes, as he hailed the biggest-ever Christmas at its stores.

Sterling’s plunge following the referendum has raised fears that imports like wine will become much more expensive for UK consumers in the coming months.

Rowan Gormley, who has run the company since it took over Naked Wines in 2015, said the market was still adjusting to the new conditions, with many retailers holding on to pre-Brexit prices over Christmas.

Majestic’s margin shrank slightly in the 10 weeks to January 2 partly due to efforts to keep prices competitive.

But Gormley is not expecting dramatic price hikes in the near future. “Price rises have already come through. The grand total has been about 4p a bottle. The price changes are just microscopically small,” Gormley said.

Customers are likely to be resilient to a change in conditions, he added. “When presented with good products and good prices, consumers will still buy. They haven’t panicked and stopped shopping or downgraded in price. They are just being much more sensible.”

The Christmas period saw a 15.3% rise in sales across the business. At stores open for more than a year sales were up 7.5%, while Naked Wines’ sales grew almost 30%.

Gormley put the improved performance down to better organisation of stores and people and upgrades to the supply chain, like automation of certain processes. “We had our best people looking after customers not loading boxes. The team just did a better job planning.”

Majestic is continuing to grow its customer base by improving service, availability and through events and tastings. It remains on track to hit £500 million in sales by 2019.