Prairie Noir - Houston 2015

For the same beer that was around $6 bucks the first time it came out 6-8 months ago and is now 40% costlier?

 

Honestly, and not to beleaguer the point any more than it already has been, it's probably just an exercise in market tolerance. They'll (Prairie and wholesalers) will stop raising prices when the product stops moving.

Why would they stop producing pricey beers when they still fly off the shelves? Wine Barrel Noir is a good example of over-saturation. They overloaded the market at a price the product didn't justify and it sat around.

My biggest gripe is the format. I wish they'd go to the 500mL or 750mL for their stouts. I'd pay the same if I knew I could at least share the bottle with a few people.

 

Miss their old corked 750s... Good format but the demand at the time made it I would assume more profitable to sell it by the 12oz bottle.

 

Straight up noir is one of my favorite Prairie beers. That is all. I have a couple in my frig, #shameless.

 

FYI the case cost for Noir is $100. That's puts wholesale cost at about $8.30 something. 30% margin is not uncommon.

 

30% margin would be $10.83 at that price. I'll concede $10.99 as functionally the same, but $12 is 44% markup.

 

OK. I didn't do the math. Let's get Chase on the case!

 

It is common for bigger stores to have a smaller markup - like Whole Foods/Specs/Central Market because that is not their main money source.

While the smaller stores, like Sunrise/WhichCraft/E1G have to have a slightly higher markup to pay their bills. They are usually around 50%.

Until you go into stores like the Flag Store or Quickie Pickie who seem to have no issue with 100%+ markup on rare bottles.

 

You're confusing margin and markup. If a store wants 30% margin, and their cost is $100 case, that means they have to sell at ~$12/bottle.

 

So since WF was referred to as the "cheap" no mark up retailer earlier in this thread... how are people justifying $11 / bottle of Noir?

 

$12.50 by me. They got 1 case a week ago. The majority of it still sitting on the shelf.

 

7.99 in dallas tonight...surprised cus both bomb and b&b were on the shelf @ 8.99.

 

This is super important. I paid 8.99 in dallas which i already thought was a tad expensive. Went to houston the next day and they were 12.99 at D+Q mini mart. F*** that

 

It looks like bottles make it to stores at a cost of $7.50-$8.50 per bottle, which means $9-$10 is the minimum price you can charge consumers. So, I don't think we can just fall back on "but but Chase said to report people who hack prices!!" Cause, let's face it, if the bare minimum a bottle can be sold for is $9-10, part of that it is on the brewery.

$13 is gauging, yes, but at what point do we ask what other breweries price their bottles to distributors at such a high mark?

 

Your bare minimum is unrealistically low and just shifts the brunt of the cost increase (from the distributor and/or the brewer) onto the retailer rather than the consumer (as is usually the case). I don't see a particularly good reason for retailers to absorb the cost in this case when they certainly don't do it for other products.

 

Thanks for trying to clear it up Andrew! as always appreciate your updates in label approvals and much more...

I dunno about other places but at E1G i have always kept our beer mark up in between 25%-33% and the cost of the prairie Noir to retailers was like chuck said was $100...

$100 divided by 12 is $8.34 per bottle and we retailed it at $11.99 and that gives us 30.4%

Cheers,
Sam
@E1Grocery

 

i, too, would like to pay the same price for 140-211% more product.

"for sharing"

 

I want to say it was $11 at CM yesterday

 

...that's part of the point...

People always defend the price by saying "Prairie says to report people who jack prices" my post shows why it's Prairie being unreasonable, not retailers.

 

Yea, I mostly agreed with your post, I just think you didn't go far enough (though I don't think $13 is "gouging" given the case price).