Wine and spirits retailer Oddbins, which has been relaunched under new owners, will focus on product range, pricing and store layout under a new management team.
New managing director Ayo Akintola – is to was formerly deputy managing director within the previous management team – told Retail Week that Oddbins’ new strategy of offering better value for money and improved customer service will ensure the retailer succeeds where the previous incarnation failed.
European Food Brokers (EFB), which trades as Whittall’s Wine Merchants, bought 37 Oddbins stores out of administration in April, after the retailer collapsed
in March.
Since the acquisition EFB has reconfigured the stores to ensure consistency across the portfolio. It is mulling a brand overhaul next year.
A transactional website, which offers the whole range of products, will be launched “imminently”, although a date was not given.
“Nothing is off the table,” said Akintola.
Oddbins is in the process of overhauling its product range, with 375 of the 475 wines sold in-store new to the retailer.
Akintola said he wants to offer consumers a “balanced” range of wines, with 28% of the wines priced £5 to £7, 31% at £8 to £10 and 41% priced above £10. He said as a result trading has been better, but declined to provide figures.
He said: “One of the things about the old company was that it went down the discounting route. We’re not doing that, instead we are offering customers honest pricing, so if we say a product is £7 then they can be sure it has a value of £7.
“We’ve gone back to the fundamentals of Oddbins, which began as an independent wine merchant.”
Akintola said that because of EFB’s existing warehouse facilities and logistics, Oddbins can operate with a much lower cost base than usual. High storage and logistics costs were a problem for the previous company.
Akintola said there were currently no firm plans to open new stores in the UK or internationally.
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