Since it bought the Wine Rack business at the beginning of September, Conviviality Retail (owner of Bargain Booze) has been working hard to create a new store template that will be more “democratic”, as chief executive Diana Hunter puts it.
Now the results are there to see in the small Surrey town of West Byfleet, and Hunter comments that the “response has been very positive and we will definitely roll this one out”. The 1,800 sq ft store is intended to be a “local wine specialist” in a “less pressured retail environment”, according to the designers, Household.
Practically, this means the shop straddles the divide between the expertise of the wine merchant and the deal-based supermarket wine shopper - help is available on the wine-buying front, but without an overwhelming amount of occasionally superfluous information. At the heart of the store there is a box display of gifts, books and accessories, and a bar where daily tastings are planned as a matter of course.
With features such as the ‘Wall of Excellence’, a ‘Discover Zone’ that points to “wines you’ve never heard of”, and a fine wine ‘Cellar VIP’, the offer targets a broad range of shoppers.
Treading the line between a value-led offer and one that is for specialist tastes is never easy, but the “democratic” approach referred to by Hunter is evident in the new store.
There are 23 Wine Rack branches, principally around London, but on the basis of what has been done in West Byfleet, it seems reasonable to expect that number to grow rapidly.
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