Amazon’s UK alcohol growth ‘back to normal’, data shows

Amazon’s UK alcohol sales slowed to moderate 11% growth during 2021, new analysis has shown – a marked slowdown on the rapid growth seen at the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Following the exponential pandemic fuelled-growth of the ecommerce giant’s first party and third-party alcohol sales in 2020, 2021 has inevitably returned to more normal levels, according to e-commerce analytics company Profitero.

It said that sales of alcohol grew 104% between July and December 2020, versus the previous year, and although there was still growth, the pace had slowed to 10.7% for the full year 2021. This compared to wider grocery growth of  around 12.2% , it said.

Drilling into the figures, it said that the highest year-on-year growth was seen by vodka, up 28.2% on the previous year, followed by Rum on 26.1% and Cognac, up 23.5%.  Scotch whisky fared less well, rising 13.6% – although gin was the surprising loser, growing only 1%.  It also saw the greatest decrease in price, of 4.3%, ahead of the wider average price fall of around 1.4% year-on-year.

Wine and Champagne saw growth of 22.2%, but lager and beer saw a decrease – likely as pubs reopened following last year’s closures. Ale however, saw growth of 13.9%.