Category Management | Adult Beverages
Balancing Alcoholic
Beverage Sets After a pandemic-driven storm of new product innovation and increased customer demand, c-stores are seeing alcoholic beverage sets stabilize, but out-of-stocks still pose challenges in some areas of the country. Erin Del Conte • Executive Editor
At the end of last summer, the alcoholic beverage category at convenience stores was seeing a surge of new product innovation, shoppers were stocking up on big packs of beer and hard seltzer to drink at home, and retailers were combating out-of-stocks due to supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, pandemic lockdowns are over, new product launches have slowed, but the disruption still lingers. Various areas of the country are seeing differences in supply challenges and customer demands when it comes to the alcoholic beverage segment. “I think the word I would use for what I’m currently seeing in my beer sets is ‘stable,’” said Kim Cuellar, category manager for beer, wine and packaged beverage at Stillwater, Okla.-based OnCue Marketing LLC, which operates 70 c-store locations in Oklahoma and Texas. “It seems like at this point we are not seeing tons and tons of new innovations constantly being introduced. Customers have their favorite brands they pur54
CSTORE DECISIONS •
chase and are really becoming brand loyal, especially within seltzers.” Meanwhile, in the Chicagoland area, shifting supply challenges are the biggest difference Mario Spina, owner & CEO of The PRIDE Stores, has seen in the category compared to last year. “This time last year, the skinny cans were unavailable, and the distributors had issues supplying them,” he said.
September 2021
By contrast, today, supply issues are impacting bottles as well as every shape of can at the chain’s 15 Chicagoland sites and one Indiana location. “With bars opening, bottles are harder to stock, where before it was (just) cans,” Spina said. The PRIDE Stores is making daily changes to its alcoholic beverage sets to offset out-of-stocks. “One-offs have helped keep some of the holes filled, but we still are having the everyday beers not available, which discourages customers,” he said. “These issues create a need for the managers to hand-sell products and learn more about alcoholic beverages than the previous year.” In Oklahoma, beer supply at OnCue stores this summer has proved much more consistent compared to summer of 2020.
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