What alcohol are we hoarding during the coronavirus shutdown?

New statistics from alcohol delivery start-up Tipple show the winners and losers of the recent alcohol rush.

Tipple co-founder Ryan Barrington. Source: Supplied.

Alcohol sales have gone through the roof in recent days, with Melbourne-based liquor delivery service Tipple reporting skyrocketing demand as thirsty customers look to stock up.

Tipple chief executive and founder Ryan Barrington told The Australian that his start-up, which was acquired by 7-Eleven in August 2018, is seeing regular orders of over $1000, with customer behaviour far different to normal as they respond to COVID-19 restrictions.

"Typically with our platform people buy to consume now," he said. "What we're seeing now is people coming in and grabbing massive amounts. One customer ordered almost every type of chardonnay we have, so part of our challenge has been keeping up with demand.

"Typically an order is around $60, and what we're seeing now is orders of over $1000."

Mr Barrington said Tipple usually delivers by scooter, but the company has been forced to mobilise more cars and vans to handle larger orders over the past few weeks.

The company offers a 'bottle shop in your pocket' via an app, and delivers in Melbourne and Sydney with Perth coming soon.

He said customers typically use Tipple when they’ve just run out of drinks but over the last two weeks the company has seen a big surge in higher volume orders (over $100) with an increase of 27 per cent over the previous two week period.

Beer and spirits seem to have been the biggest winners from the coronavirus-fuelled demand.

"Australians love their beer and it showed with overall beer volume up 18 per cent in the last two weeks," he said. "As things got serious last week, sales of our 12 packs and slabs took a big jump compared to smaller pack sizes as Australians started stocking up."

He added that red and white wine drinkers alike stocked up big last week on multi-pack wine bundles, which saw a significant uplift of 25 per cent, while single wine bottles remained comparatively flat.

Sparkling wine took a tumble with not much to celebrate over the past two weeks, down 8 per cent on the two weeks prior.

"As the panic buying went into overdrive last week, spirits were also a target with an 11 uplift per cent in volume," the executive said. "We hope they’re all being bought for efficiency and not for hand sanitiser, which doesn't work.

"Cigarette order volume saw a big overall gain with a 23 per cent uplift in last two weeks. Last week also saw a mad dash for grocery and our 'extras' category got raided with a huge increase of 24 per cent last week.

"With minimal toilet paper available at bottle shops, users stocked up instead on mixers last week."

As The Australian previously reported, 7-Eleven bought Tipple in August 2018, purchasing a majority stake in the company for an undisclosed sum.

Mr Barrington told The Australian that following the local success of Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Amazon, customers now wanted everything delivered on demand, including alcohol.

He added that Tipple drivers were, in general, paid 40 or 50 per cent more than the market average.

“The difference with alcohol is you can do more orders per delivery run,” he said. “With food, it’s one transaction, and if the guy doesn’t answer the door then the food goes cold. With alcohol, it’ll keep. Often with us you’re doing seven, eight or nine orders per hour.

“If you don’t treat them fairly, they’ll leave.”