Business to Consumer Best All-Round Business or Brand with Annual Sales of £5 million to £10 million
Naked Wines N Homepage
orwich-based Naked Wines was founded in 2008 by Virgin Money and Virgin Wines founder Rowan
Gormley. Together with its 100,000 customers, the company invests in independent winemakers around the world in return for exclusive wines at preferential prices instead of shares or dividends. Customers have a hand in creating the wines they want to drink by either investing £20 a month into their Naked Wines account in return for 33 percent cash back every time they buy, or electing to buy a wine before it’s made using Naked Wines’ “advance bookings” system.
What the judges said “Fantastic example of how the power of the internet can be harnessed to create an entirely new business model that shakes a whole industry up.” Chloe Thomas
In their own words... “We launched just over two years ago and growth has been amazing, more than we could ever have hoped for. It’s going from strength to strength, so it’s great to get this reward.” Holly Graham
Pictured (l-r): Sally Gray, Dermot Murnaghan, Holly Graham ecmod DIRECT COMMERCE YEAR BOOK 2011 27
In just two years, Naked Wines has helped 22 winemakers set up shop, create 85 new wines, and sell more than 1 million bottles of their wines. In December 2010, the company announced that its goal for 2011 was to double this and it pledged to create a £10 million investment fund to support winemakers looking to break into the UK.
Naked Wines is a great example of a business that truly understands the power of social media as commercial channels. Its website is a hybrid social network and online shop that encourages customers and winemakers to interact with one another. Features include a “what’s happening right now” banner that updates whenever someone makes a purchase or “likes” a wine, as well as unedited customer ratings and reviews. The company’s Facebook page, which, at the time of writing had more than 8,100 fans, gives customers a taste of what they can expect to see on the Naked Wines website. Offline, Naked Wines invites customers on buying trips and to trade fairs. It even invites winemakers into customers’ homes to host exclusive tastings.
The rich interactive platform of Naked Wines’ online offering impressed the ECMOD judges so much, that it even converted one of them into a customer.
Naked Wines’ pearl of wisdom for 2011
“Be active on social networks and provide customers with more content to help them decide what they want to buy.”
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