People just don't know how much beer costs, it's as simple as that. And it's a fact that's beginning to get on my nerves more and more.
How often do you hear people complaining about the price of a pint, or how much a bottle of lager costs in a pub? I hear it all the time! And I find it pretty funny that no one ever looks twice at the price of a bottle of wine in a bar!!
We get it in the off trade all the time too.. People asking if we "have any deals on" or "I'm sure it's a good beer, but I'm not paying that much"
We don't do deals. We don't have 3 bottles for a fiver or any of that selling strategy. We can offer a 10% discount when you buy a case, but that's about it. We stick to a strict mark-up across our whole bottle range and believe we offer a fair price for all our beers. If they cost more, it's because the breweries sell it to us for more! It's as simple as that.
People just don't seem to understand it though. When I say to customers that we don't offer any multi-buy deals they look at me like I'm from another planet and usually leave in a huff.
It's not these people's faults though, heavens no!
It's the Supermarkets.
They've been doing it so long now we just assume that what they do is the norm. Two bottles of wine for £5, 5 beers for a tenner, or a case of twenty stubbies for less! Supermarkets have been driving down the price of alcohol for so long that our attitudes towards price have become so poisoned and deluded that we turn our noses up at a bottle of wine for £8, but are perfectly happy to pay 2 POUNDS FOR A BAG OF LETTUCE!!
LETTUCE!!!!!
Why don't we do it then? Well because we'd go out of business, simple as. All we sell is alcohol, so unfortunately we can't make massive fat profits on selling people a sandwich, packet of crisps and a drink, calling it a meal-deal for a fiver, whilst not making a margin on a bottle of beer they might buy as well.
Bring the ban on multi-buys to England, a ban on selling below cost price, and a cap on how low margins can dip on alcoholic products! We need it.
...and grow your own chuffin lettuce!
A valid point, well made, sir.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of people we have coming into the brewery, looking to buy takeout bottles or whatever who get really shocked and offended that I'm asking them to pay just £10 for a six pack of quality craft beer directly from the brewery. Try getting it from a shop for that price!
ReplyDeleteI also had a chap email complaining that he paid £3.20 to drink a can of our Steam Lager in a small, independent delicatessen in Norwich and remarked that while it was one of the best beers he's ever had, he refuses to buy it again unless it's around the £2 a can mark.
Banning this or that will never allow independent retailers to compete with supermarkets on price. I do pretty much all my beer shopping in independent shops, but it's not the price or the possibility of multibuy deals that gets me in there.
ReplyDeleteTime to recognise that you're not in the same business as supermarkets. Off licences that don't will go the same way as all those butchers, bakers and greengrocers.
It's hard to see ourselves as separate from the supermarkets when they're selling the same product as us but for vastly decreased price...
DeleteIt's one of the reasons we've stopped selling so many breweries' beers, because people just buy them cheaper elsewhere.
But there is a silver lining to this, in that we've made room for so many different breweries and beers that people have never even heard of before, it just annoys me that we keep getting compared to them on a regular basis...
And that's exactly the right strategy, IMO. When a supermarket does something you do, drop it and move on to something else. They're always raising their game and you need to be too. They have price as a weapon; you have flexibility, agility and knowledge: use them.
DeleteThe place where I buy my beer sells mass-market tinnies because there's enough passing trade from the people who can't be bothered schlepping 500m up the hill to Tesco. But it doesn't stock any craft beer sold in a supermarket: there's no point and it means there's always room for something new that not so many places have. And I get my industry gossip when I'm in.
and in the spirit of growing one's own lettuce, brew your own beer. A 5 US gallon batch of my usual homebrews costs me about 15 quid total and yields about 33 imperial pints of perfectly drinkable beer. 50p a pint. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteAs long as you regard your time as worthless ;)
Deletethat's what Saturdays were invented for.
ReplyDeleteI mean I dont know who these people are that buy a bag of lettuce for 2.00 but they are crazy, Im all about the head of iceburg for .89!
ReplyDelete