A study of 19 UK wine merchants · October 2026

Why wine merchants do so little marketing

We looked at 19 of the UK's best independent wine merchants, each with several shops: their ads, their place on Google and their newsletter. Most do very little. Not because they don't care.

15 of 19run no ads on Facebook or Instagram.All 8 national wine sellers do. Of 35 independent merchants we checked, 4 do.
9 of 19ran none last Christmas either.The 10 that did started on 5 November (the middle date), 13 days after the rest of the trade.
14 of 18are nowhere in Google's top 20 for 12 Christmas searches.Together these merchants show up there 6 times. The 12 searches add up to 10,650 a month.
7 of 18have no newsletter sign-up, or hide it in the footer.4 have none at all. Your best new customer is your old customer, and a newsletter is how you reach them.
Where the Christmas searches go

10,650 Christmas searches a month. None of the 19 merchants comes first for any of them.

The number one result on Google in the UK for twelve searches people make before Christmas, checked on 10 October.

SearchA monthNumber one on Google
"wine hamper"2,900Marks & Spencer
"champagne gifts"2,400a champagne gift site
"wine subscription"1,900Laithwaites
"christmas wine gifts"1,000Laithwaites
"wine gifts uk"720Virgin Wines
"wine club uk"590a newspaper wine club
"wine merchant london"480a London area guide
"en primeur"260a London restaurant
"what wine with turkey"210a wine fridge maker
"corporate wine gifts"140a corporate wine gift company
"vintage port gift"30Waitrose Cellar
"what wine with christmas dinner"20The Wine Society
Why

Too expensive. Too slow. Too complicated.

A wine shop needs the same marketing as a national chain, with a fraction of the people. So most of it never happens.

It cost too much.A manager and two executives cost about £11,600 a month, before the tools and before anyone has time to manage them. Few wine shops can carry that.
It took too long.Someone had to work Meta Ads Manager, the email tool, Instagram and Google Ads every day, on top of the shop floor.
It was too complicated.Every tool needed its own expert. One person doing all of it ends up doing each part halfway.
Nobody knew what to push.Without knowing what sells this week, every ad is a guess, and a guess is hard to pay for.
What it costs to do nothing

The space is open, and the nationals are already in it.

All 8 national wine sellers run ads on Facebook and Instagram right now, mostly on price. Last Christmas 22 of the 50 UK wine sellers we follow advertised, and the middle one started on 23 October. A merchant's own customers see those ads too. They search "wine hamper" and the first result is Marks & Spencer. Nobody tells them about the shop round the corner, unless the shop does.

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How we looked

The 19 merchants are UK independents with several shops each. We don't name them. Ads: Meta's Ad Library through its official API, read on 11 October 2026, and every ad that ran from 1 November 2025 to 5 January 2026 for last Christmas. The trade comparison covers 50 UK wine sellers: nationals, chains, online sellers and independents.

Google: the top 20 results in the UK for twelve Christmas searches on 10 October, with monthly search volumes from Google's own keyword data. Sign-ups: each merchant's homepage, read on the same day, 18 of the 19.

The £11,600 is a marketing manager and two executives at UK median pay, with employer National Insurance and pension: how we worked it out.