And the beat goes on Dept: Shelf space...

[Capn Jimbo]

To the victors go the shelf space...


It's no surprise that the mega-conglomerates and their butt buddy big distributors and retailers have all gotten the memo, such that the Big Three control about 80% of the shelf space, and ALL of the prime space (eye level and one shelf up or down). But I could always count on our amazing and numerous Indian merchants to carry a much better selection of good and hard-to-find rums, and at better prices to boot.

Has that changed?

I can't speak for all the smaller vendors, but I did visit one of my long time favorites small liquor store that used to be one of my long time favorites. I discovered the following:

1. The shelves devoted to rum had increased rather dramatically. The store now had about 44 feet, 6 shelves high - all devoted to rum. That's 264 feet of jam packed shelves. Impressive.

2. But all the growth went to the Big Three and more crap rums than I could have ever believed possible! Even giving the category "sipping" rums great leeway, there was only about 55 or 60 feet - about 20$ - devoted to them, just like the big boyz box stores.

3. These independent stores used to be quite different with 60 or 70% devoted to better rums, and only 30 or 40% devoted to moose droppings.

4. Worse even yet, these few better rums were relegated to top two, 5th and 6th shelves, hard to see and impossible to reach. Want an Appleton Extra? Call the attendant with his step stool to grab it for you. No bottle reading allowed, better know what you want.

Now even the smaller retailers have completely capitulated. Reminds me of the Army draftee induction center where 200 of us were asked to drop our undies and to "...bend over and spread em", for a mass rectal exam.

Now I get exactly the same impression in the liquor stores...