Of course this is very old and rotting news around here, but some of the visiting monkeys may feel that The Project has overstated the case of the power of the mega's to control product and distribution, prices and politicians.Hamilton: "In the distribution end of the business, store owners across the US have told me about salespeople requiring them to have x number of Bacardi facings (bottles) in the rum section of the store if they want to get a good price on Grey Goose or in order to even get the amount of Grey Goose that they have ordered.
Certainly Bacardi sees Grey Goose as competition to their Superior, but someone seems to be playing this for all its worth in the distribution tier of the business.
The bottom line is that no liquor store can afford to tell the salesperson that they aren't going to be bullied and not order Grey Goose or Bacardi from a distributor that also carries other products that they need to have in stock in order to remain in business."
If anything the case has been understated. In addition to the obvious bullying we have also reported distributors being sued for not giving "enough attention" to favored lines, how bars are pressured and given incentives to use only favored products and the like. And if all the ensuing profit was not enough of course we found Diageo and Fortune extracting billions of USD designed to pay them for making rum, and which will ultimately change the marketplace forever.
