Dear Liv-ex member
This year has been challenging for both Liv-ex and the wine trade. While transaction volumes are rising on the platform, prices and traded value have continued to fall. Despite this, we have increased investment in the exchange and the data and logistics that support it, to help members both navigate these difficult times and seize any opportunities that materialise.
As I write, the value of live bids and offers on the exchange exceeds £150m – an all-time high – with more buyers and sellers in more countries than ever before. We have also broadened and deepened our data collection capability. Last month alone we collected 2,000 price lists from more than 500 sources and loaded 3.6m new data points into the database. We now have accurate price data for over 500,000 different wines and spirits.
In response to member feedback, we have also made improvements to the Market Price. We have refined the logic to make it more accurate and less volatile, introduced regional benchmarks to make the data more relevant to your local market, and confidence indicators to highlight the liquidity and therefore the reliability of the price in question.
We have also built a calculator to generate drinking windows on more than 800,000 products. These are all matched to LWIN and available on the platform and via API. ABVs, commodity codes and critic scores/ notes (if you have a license from the copyright owner) are likewise available.
Our biggest investment every year is in logistics. We have completely reshaped our supply chain in recent years, building a comprehensive network across Europe, where we are now collecting from hundreds of suppliers and consolidating purchases for buyers at their chosen collection/ delivery points in the UK or EU. For members across the world, we are told that this is a considerable time and efficiency saver, making wines and customers accessible in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be viable. Work to simplify and automate this complicated process is ongoing.
More investment is planned for 2025. This will include a new, enhanced search capability and more personalisation to bring analysis and opportunities that are more relevant to you. We will expand the coverage, sources and frequency of our price data and market intelligence. Our ambition is to help you optimise your buying and selling outcomes, not just on Liv-ex, but across your business.
In 2025, we will remove data allowance restrictions from all of our packages in app and replace them with a fair usage approach. We have published our revised membership prices and logistics prices for next year online.
Our terms and conditions have also been updated for the first time in many years. You will receive a separate communication about this next week. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let your account manager know.
On behalf of everyone at Liv-ex, I wish you a happy Christmas, a prosperous 2025, and thank you for your continued support.
Best Wishes,
James Miles
