Majestic boss on why retail is bricks and mortar

John Colley is a man every landlord across the UK should have on their speed dial. If you’re down in the dumps about brick and mortar or have a site you’re struggling with, Colley is the man you need to speak to. Why? Because to him, retail is bricks and mortar. Colley is the chief executive of Majestic, the Fortress Investment Group-owned wine, beer and spirits retailer, and is on a mission to bring the Majestic experience to as many of us as possible. Earlier this year, Majestic announced plans to expand its portfolio of 209 sites by a further 125 locations. It wants to open an average of one new store per month to attract new customers, drive sales and win market share – and utilising its unique and deep customer data it has already identified a number of specific locations in all four corners of the country.  Almost 30 locations have been identified in central London where it could open smaller-format sites, following the success of its “mini Majestic” concept in Harpenden, Crouch End and Marlow – all of which opened during its 2023/24 financial year. A further 14 areas inside the M25 have been earmarked as targets for expansion, alongside 13 locations in the Midlands, seven in the North of England and Scotland, and three in Wales. “Our stores are our new customer recruitment vehicle,” says Colley, as EG meets him at Majestic St John’s Wood, NW8, one of the retailer’s most successful stores. “We recruit anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 new customers every year through the shops. If we didn’t have the shops, we wouldn’t recruit new customers. If we didn’t have the shops, we wouldn’t be able to do delivery for our own trade business, we wouldn’t be able to do glass hire and ice buckets and all those great things, we wouldn’t be able to do tastings. It’s a key part of our infrastructure. Majestic wouldn’t be Majestic without the ability to have the right type of property portfolio.” And that is why every landlord up and down the country needs Colley – or Majestic’s agents at Jackson Criss – on speed dial. Here is a retailer that understands the importance of bricks and mortar for growth and one that isn’t afraid to invest. Opportunity “We’ve been around for 45 years,” says Colley, “and we plan to be around for another 45 and we’ll do that if we’ve got the right physical estate.” That’s not to say Colley and Majestic don’t do online. They do. And, says Colley, they do it pretty well, boasting that the business holds the record for getting booze to a customer in the shortest time – 10 minutes apparently – from order to delivery. But digital only works that well when there is a network of real estate to feed the demand. Alongside the Majestic expansion, the group is also looking to grow Vagabond, the nine-strong wine bar business it bought out of administration early this year, with Savills appointed to assist. “We’ve got areas of expansion that we want to look at and acquisitions and opportunities that we think are synergistic to us,” says Colley. “The physical part of our business is doing well, and we will continue to grow that with the store expansion. For the Vagabond business, we’re actively looking for the right type of bars in the right type of location, similar to how we look at Majestic.” And while Colley is clearly positive about the growth of the Majestic – and Vagabond – businesses, he does think the government could – or perhaps should – be doing a little more to help retail thrive and bring life back to our towns and cities. “Retail has had a really tough time, just generally, and I think it continues to be quite hard for retail and I do think it’s down to the government to help,” he says, highlighting the need for business rates to be properly reformed “We do need to get some traction on it,” he adds. “They talk about reinvigorating the high street but who in their right mind is going to open a shop on a high street unless we’ve got the right level of support? Sometimes the business rates are more than the profits the shops make. “If we pay less corporation tax or we’re paying less business rates, that money would be invested back in growth. It’s not about taking more money out of the organisation. We’ve only ever invested in Majestic over the past five years and want to continue to do so.” Majestic started as a family owned wine warehouse in the 1980s with the ambition of being able to sell wine by the case direct to consumers. The chain expanded quickly, with a brief foray into the US, and while it hit a few hurdles along the way, last year it toasted some of its best sales figures ever, with Christmas trading up by 8.1%. Colley is on his second stint at Majestic, having first joined the company in 2015 as managing director before leaving two years later. He was brought back into the business as chief executive in 2019 when Fortress bought Majestic off Naked Wines. “When we [Fortress] bought the company, it was struggling,” says Colley. “Naked wines was a pure play digital business. It didn’t really understand physical. Its strategy was let’s take customers out of shops. I’m about getting customers in shops – as many as I can possibly get in there.” Building connections Getting as many customers as possible into stores requires the right stores in the right places and the right experiences in those stores. For Colley, everything needs to be connected. The Majestic digital experience, he says, is designed to enable the business to get people into shops, be it through click and collect or its shop local software that enables customers to browse real time the stock in the store and see what is available there versus its online store. If it’s available in store, customers can pick it up or the store will deliver it, utilising their own store warehouse and delivery van. “All of our shops have got that,” says Colley, “and what that does is builds a connection with our customers. It makes us part of the local community. Every store’s like that. When we find a shop, we really want it to be part of the community.” Finding new shops is hard though, admits Colley. The chain’s perfect store is 3,500 sq ft, has parking for at least seven cars and good storage capability. For a long time that was all Majestic would take, but in recent years, with Colley at the helm, it has become more flexible and started experimenting with smaller-format stores such as those in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and Henley, Oxfordshire. “In Henley, we were looking for a store for 20 years and one came up, but it was a small shop,” says Colley. “It didn’t have its own car park but it shared one with Waitrose, so I thought, ‘Well that’ll do’. Waitrose customers bring traffic, that’s quite helpful. We like Henley, we know the demographic, we’ll put the shop there. We’ll definitely take a bit more risk now on the type of shops we open.” Calculated risk That more risky approach isn’t just about size. As property has become harder to find, the business has been more innovative with the sites it has taken on. Colley cites a project in Christchurch, Dorset, where it has taken over a service yard behind a hotel. “It’s taken some planning, it’s taken some good negotiations with the landlord to get them to convert, in essence, what is a service yard into a nice-looking shop. But we’re prepared to look at those sorts of things because if we want to be in Christchurch, we know finding the right type of store is quite hard to do,” says Colley. That attitude has seen the chain open in an old Chinese garage complete with koi carp lake in Beckenham, south east London, old tram sheds in Bristol, an art deco cinema in Clapham, SW12, and an old generating station in Jersey. “We can make a shop out of anything,” says Colley. “For us it doesn’t have to be all shiny and bright and big lights and things like that. As long as it’s a good shop. We’ll look at things in a completely different way.” You can tell that the quirky stores are among some of Colley’s favourites. There’s a sense of custodianship around those stores. That Majestic wants to come in and bring them back to life, fill them full of booze and shoppers. The firm tends to take leases of at least 10 years, albeit may be a little more flexible on some of the smaller stores just in case that hen’s tooth location suddenly appears. But before too many landlords with too many quirky assets on their hands get carried away, it would be wise to remember that while Colley’s enthusiasm to save the weird and wonderful from dereliction is genuine, Majestic does have a pretty serious process to its expansion. Location matters, so not every site – quirky or not – will be in the perfect place. Data plays a vital role in store selection, which is why the firm has been quite specific with the 125 locations it is targeting for expansion. That said, Colley does want landlords to put him on speed dial. “If there’s any big property businesses out there, thinking ‘Crikey, that would make a great Majestic’, don’t hesitate to give us a ring,” he says.   Main image © Tom Campbell