The online market for alcoholic beverages, the so-called Spirits eCommerce, is particularly interesting to keep an eye on. Sales have been growing in recent years and it is digital commerce that plays a decisive role in the success of this sector.
“eCommerce is a key element in the overall picture of the total value of this market,” said Guy Wolfe, head of eCommerce research at IWSR, a global beverage industry data and information source. “The global alcohol market is huge, complex and rapidly evolving,” reads the IWSR website, and eCommerce is contributing strongly to revolutionising this market.
Spirits eCommerce: how much is it worth in the world
More and more alcoholic beverages are being sold online, so much so that the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis predicts the sector will be worth $40 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34% from 2021 to 2026.
It is also estimated that by next year (2025), the Spirits eCommerce market will account for around 6% of all off-trade spirits sales volumes.
The frequency of online shopping
According to the IWSR research – which analysed ten key markets in the sector (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US) and six secondary markets (Canada, Colombia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria and South Africa) – the frequency of online alcohol purchases would have increased in all the markets analysed, albeit at a reduced rate of growth compared to the years before the Covid-19 pandemic.
After booming in 2020, in fact, the value of eCommerce declined slightly by 2% in 2022 due to the removal of restrictions in most markets that drove shoppers to the on-trade and physical shops.
The frequency of online alcohol purchases therefore increased in all markets surveyed, albeit at a reduced rate of growth compared to 2020, with the only exception being the Chinese market.
The fastest growing markets
China and the US are in fact the main drivers of growth in the value of the eCommerce channel for alcohol sales, while Latin America takes the title of the fastest developing market.
Alcoholic beverages based on agave and whisky are the best-selling in the US, while in China only brandy and whisky are sold. After all, to each his own taste.
But how does Italy position itself in this scenario?
Spirits eCommerce in Italy
According to data published by Federvini and Coldiretti based on ISTAT, the alcoholic beverages market in Italy was worth EUR 14 billion in 2022. For the World Health Organisation, moreover, alcohol consumption in Italy would have increased by +0.5 litres between 2010 and 2020.
Growing along with alcohol consumption, however, is also the attention that Italian consumers have towards online purchases of this type of product; attention also confirmed by an analysis of the Trovaprezzi.it website, according to which in 2023 price alerts set by users on online stores in the alcohol category would have increased by 50% compared to the period 2018-2024.
On Amazon.co.uk, on the other hand, in 2022 the spirits segment (consisting of Sparkling Wine & Champagne, Gin, Rum and Whisky) received around 2.5 million searches, up 7% on average across subcategories.
Driving online sales would mainly be occasions such as Christmas and Black Friday, during which the total volume of searches exceeds 1 million, i.e. almost 50 per cent of the entire segment, although sales remain fairly stable throughout the year (Witailer research data in cooperation with Mr Dee Still).
Driving the growing consumer interest in the segment is first and foremost the convenience factor: online stores offer a large ‘cellar’, i.e. a wide choice of products, often sold at cheaper prices than those available on the shelves of specialised shops and supermarkets.
Ma chi è l’acquirente tipo?
The identikit of the typical Italian buyer
Outlining the profile of the ‘typical’ buyer in Italy of an eCommerce selling alcoholic products is again the research by Trovaprezzi.it.
Behind the online purchase of an alcoholic product in Italy, therefore, is often a man (61% vs. 39% women), aged between 25 and 34 years (26%), resident in northern Italy (50.7% of online purchases, of which 30.2% in Lombardy alone).
Other regions particularly active in the online purchase of alcohol are Lazio, Campania, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont.
Best-selling spirits online
The most sought-after spirits online by Italian consumers (the source is always Trovaprezzi.it) is the timeless Vecchio Amaro del Capo, followed by the prized Rum Zacapa (whose average online price in the first four months of 2024 dropped by 38% compared to the average price in the same period of 2023, demonstrating that online shoppers are betting heavily on savings).
Other highly sought-after classics are Amaro Montenegro and Campari Bitter, while Sambuca Molinari closes the top 5 of the most sought-after alcoholic products online.
Spirits eCommerce: the secret of success is shipping care
After analysing all the most interesting data in this sector, only one question remains to be answered: what is the secret of success of an online store selling alcoholic products? In other words, does only the price of the products and thus the savings compared to an offline purchase count for the consumer, or are there other factors to take into account?
Certainly, when talking about Spirits eCommerce, one cannot help but notice that in order to ensure the success of an online store, care for shipping is crucial.
A correct mode of transport, in fact, not only guarantees the integrity of the product, in itself quite fragile, but also that the bottles are stored correctly until delivery to the end customer, so that all the organoleptic qualities of the product remain intact.
The importance of a quality service that protects your products
In order to ensure the correct maintenance of organoleptic characteristics and to avoid possible alterations, the Interdisciplinary Observatory for Food and Drug Transport – OITAf drew up in 2021 a vedemecum – still valid today – for the correct transport, storage and packaging of products such as wine and oil (therefore also valid for the Spirits market), products that are very sensitive to environmental stress related to transport conditions (temperature, light and vibrations) and handling during the logistics chain, both for national and international shipments.
According to the guidelines drawn up by the Technical Table of experts in the sector, the characteristics of these products should be protected with controlled temperature transport. A solution, this, that does not exclude the possibility of also using temperature-controlled Lockers and Pick-up Points for the delivery of orders placed online, thus guaranteeing a quality service, as well as being more sustainable from an environmental and practical point of view for consumers.
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