Taxes and the cost-of-living crisis remain the key challenges for independent drinks retailers, according to the Drinks Retailing summer survey. 

In a survey put out to our readership, the most commonly named issues were financial. These included taxes such as EPR, duty rates and the rise in National Insurance. 

Following this, high staff costs and an increase in overheads were also named, alongside the cost-of-living crisis impacting consumer spending. 

When asked how duty and tax impact price and product range, the majority of respondents noted that they have had to increase the prices of their products. 

The problem with this, according to one retailer, is that it results in them doing “less entry level and lower medium price points as those customers are now shopping in supermarkets or multiples.” 

Instead, many retailers are responding by focusing more on premium offerings. 

“We could not absorb the increase, so our prices have had to go up,” explained another retailer. “This was communicated to our customers. We have overhauled our £10 to £15 range of wines.” 

This was echoed by another respondent: “It’s a struggle to maintain margins with increased costs without increasing the pricing of core products within the range.” 

On buying choices, most retailers said they had changed the way they approached buying because of the economic conditions. Only 12% said they hadn’t changed at all. 

What each retailer changed varied, with answers including buying less and less often; looking for lower price bracket products to counteract duty; buying directly from producers when possible; buying lower abv wines; consolidating on core sellers rather than taking risks; and holding less stock. 

Turning to regulatory issues that retailers would like to see addressed, duty rates and EPR taxes were again the most mentioned, with one retailer describing the latter as an “absolute joke”. 

Others spoke in favour of the business rates reform, which would aim to ease the pressure on small businesses. “I think it has had enough attention to make it a plausible thing to happen over the current parliament,” one respondent said. 

Despite the challenges, only around 12% of respondents said they did not feel confident about their business prospects in the next 12 months. Approximately 23% said they felt very confident, 30% said they felt somewhat confident, while the largest portion at 35% said they felt neutral.