Richard has an extensive experience across the wine and drinks industry and has worked in this category since 1998 and set up the first Majestic wine website.

Ecommerce is changing the wine industry and we are seeing the decline or some bricks and mortar one reason being that 80% of wine are sold through supermarkets.

Business such as Master of Malt - Spirts specialists have an extensive catelogue of rare spirits and they are one of the niche and specialist operators who are doing well nationally.

Wine is a complex category with a wide variety of choice with a huge gap of consumer understanding and translating this to how it is sold online is tricky.

The UK is the most mature market in the work for selling wine online and selling wine is relatively straight forward. Trends which are cropping up are subscription and cutting out the middleman. This is due to the increased interest in craft beer which is a very vibrant market - other alcohol includes gin and whisky.