Naked Wines is cutting jobs as sales continued to slide over Christmas as boss Rowan Gormley said it had to “recognise it was a smaller company post-Covid and our cost base has to reflect this”.
The online wine retailer said it was reducing selling goods and administrative costs by an additional £7m this year, which Gormley said meant it would lose “a number of valued colleagues” with around 50 jobs impacted.
It has also reduced the size of its board with non-executive director Melanie Allen standing down with immediate effect.
The cuts come as the retailer’s sales fell 10% in constant currency over the golden quarter as its average repeat customer base declined by 12%.
Despite the sales decline, this is an improvement on the 18% plunge during the first half of 2024 and Naked Wines said third quarter EBIT is forecast to hit £3m to £5m, which it said was in line with expectations.
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Naked Wines executive chair Rowan Gormley said: “As we saw at the half year, the reason sales are down on prior year is entirely due to a smaller repeat customer base reflecting lower investment in customer recruitment in the previous year.
“But for the first time, we are seeing signs of new customer acquisition coming back to life, which should support further improvement in the top-line trend.”
The wine boss added that he was committed to building a “leaner and stronger” Naked Wines.
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