Williams is wine critic for The Observer
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THE BURNING QUESTION
How do you feel about the travails of Oddbins and Majestic?
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this magazine, are worth listing here purely
I think that there’s a sadness but an inevitability about Oddbins. With Majestic I can see it making more opportunities for indies like us because I think the supermarkets will sweep up whatever custom is relevant to them and hopefully, with any luck, the mid-tier who they were supplying will go to the indies because we can offer a service and experience that the supermarkets can’t do.
to remind us of just how life-threateningly severe they are.
First came the biggest recession since
the 1930s followed by wage stagnation not seen since the Napoleonic wars, massively
reducing most people’s disposable income.
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Add to this the ever-growing rise of
Alistair Coulthurst Levels, Eastbourne
internet-based alternatives, from Amazon to Deliveroo, catering to an increasingly
time-pressed and sofa-bound population
and the continued development of out-oftown retail parks.
Then spice it all up with a massive
dose of austerity, which meant town
councils were forced to cope with a 37% drop in the funds allocated to them by
central government, leaving them with
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Majestic had a unique idea, with a 12-bottle minimum purchase. They reduced to six, and then single bottles, but they were in completely the wrong sites for that. What they had was fine but when they expanded and went on the stock market it blew them. I feel really sorry about Oddbins. When Seagram’s pulled out, that was the death knell. I think independents have an advantage, but it’s location, location, location.
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Chris Beckett The Bottleneck, Broadstairs
little alternative but to cut out the kind
of things – regular street cleaning, public toilets, buses, libraries – that, without us
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really noticing until it’s too late, make high
I started my career at both Oddbins and Majestic. I was involved in Oddbins’ closure the first time round. It’s good to have high street wine shops but I think it shows that independents can work it better than the chains. We are more flexible and dynamic in our approach: how we deal with customers, what goes on the shelf, and whether you go hybrid or fully wine bar, whereas Majestic was always a bit slower and Oddbins seems to have just relied on its social media since the early 2000s.
streets work.
Finally season with a sprinkling of
rising and confusing business rates that often have little or nothing to do with a
business’s turnover or value, and wonder – bitterly, sarcastically – why councils
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were sending out bailiffs to more than 220 premises a day to collect unpaid business rates in 2017 and 2018 (according to a report by ratings advisor Altus).
I
t’s easy, when reading the litany of
defunct or struggling big high street names – from Woolworths to BHS,
and the almost complete destruction of the specialist multiple off-licence – or the figures showing net closures for
independent retailers in 2018, to get
depressed about the future of the British high street.
Matt Monk The Whalley Wine Shop, Lancashire
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It’s a different world. I think they still cater still to the older market and I get a lot more younger consumers coming in who actually want to learn about wine. We don’t have an Oddbins or a Majestic near us any more; they closed down. When I go into another indie I can always tell if someone is from that world because it feels a bit more scripted. From their first couple of words you can tell if they are Oddbins or Majestic-trained. The training is very good, but they’ve all gone through the same training.
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Clare Deer Ruby & Claret, Earls Barton, Northampton
Champagne Gosset The oldest wine house in Champagne: Äy 1584
Continues page 14
THE WINE MERCHANT june 2019 13