A Beer Marketing Question
I can't figure this out. Hamms Special Light is the cheapest light beer sold in this county. At least it's the cheapest I've found. Why is it harder and harder to be found in stores?
Used to not be a problem as Winco generally stocked it. It seemed to be quite popular. There never seemed to be a full stack of cases or 12 packs in the cooler as there are with most other beers. Sometimes they'd run out of the cases and I never noticed any of the other brands come close to running out.
Then they seemed to replenish their stock less and less and there'd be times when you couldn't get any at all. Now it seems, since they ran out, they never replenished their stock even though they have plenty of the regular Hamm's beer that remains mostly on the shelves.
Why would a company stop selling what seems to be their most popular beer? I ran into the delivery guy at Winco once and asked him why it was so hard to get. That was before they stopped selling it. He said he didn't know and that sometimes they'd give him a bunch to deliver, sometimes they wouldn't.
It doesn't make sense. You'd think they'd keep track of what sells well and what doesn't and make an effort to keep the big sellers available. Now all Winco has is the regular Hamms beer and it doesn't look like anybody is buying it, myself included. I buy the Natural Light now which is the next cheapest as apparently does all my fellow drunken bums.
Why would they do this to us? I keep telling myself to call the distributor and ask about it but I always forget by the time I get home. Anybody have an idea why they might be doing this?
posted by Fred Mangels @ 10:43 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I only have one thing to say, "Nattylite!"
The fact that it is the cheapest beer they sell also likely means that they make the least amount of money by selling it. Beer is a fairly expensive product to transport. If they aren't making enough money on it to justify transportation costs, they will likely discontinue selling it.
Why the sporadic delivery? Most likely, it is due to the fact that distributors will offer the store deals on certain occasions based on sales volume of their entire product line. If no one is buying regular Hamm's, they probably won't get enough of a discount on the cheaper Hamm's beer to make it worth p-lacing an order.
I would guess that the store sells more Hamm's (and beer, in general) during the Summer months. Thus, they are more likely to get better discounts during the Summer than the Winter. It's entirely possible that the beer could end-up resurfacing once things thaw-out.
Your best bet on getting the situation changed is to write a letter to WinCo AND the company/distributor that sells the beer. They may also be able to tell you where else you can buy it locally. Could be that they have a bunch in a wherehouse in Old Town and will sell it to you straight from there.
WVH
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