Does online ordering cancel out beer sales reps?

The three tiered system, manifested as the beer rep, controls the flow of information and until that layer can morph with retail, the rep will live on. There is a weekly email of freshies (from every distributor) that average consumers are not privy to and thus rely on their favorite shops to read and curate a great selection. We as enthusiasts need to trust that our retailers will be hospitable and transparent, how many times have you asked a shop, "is this available" thinking its hard to come by, but its really not. Then again placing individual orders just for a half case of something is a risk, especially if it becomes habitual. None the less a false sense of scarcity, develops.

Reps are plugged into their portfolio, know what will sell, and ideally how it fits into the retailers offerings. There is just so much product building a relationship with a rep saves time, and knowing the general philosophy of a distributor can help narrow choices as well.

My favorite example of a way around the three tiered system is B. United creating OEC, which is both an amazing brewery and a direct retail arm.

Things comb through

Longbow Distributes Shelton (the link is SB excel Retail List)
https://www.sheltonbrothers.com/trade/

Craft Collective MA Weekly Can Inventory
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B46-6LG0Io2iSlF1YTdoODdLbFU/view

Burke Monthly Journal
https://burkedist.com/application/files/8316/0152/3246/OCTOBER_2020_ALL_BEVERAGES.pdf

 

There still needs to be a sales.person. at one of my favorite drinking establishments they are not big beer heads but they are conscious of wanting to have a good selection on their 6 taps (I'm mostly in it for the food and atmosphere) and I've watched the owners interact with the beer rep. The rep is able to translate the non-beer nerd questions of the owner ("is there something kind dark that's not too strong, kinda like Guinness?") into useful answers that result in good local beer on the tap. I know that that same distributor works with the best beer bar in town and the owner there has told me that they're super good about putting in leg work to get at least some of the rarer stuff from their portfolio into his hands. Without the distributors rep both of those places probably suffer a decline in selection quality because they can't leverage the human relationship.

 

I'm not sure where you're from but take Total Wine, BevMo, Binnys, places like that, that move huge volume, no manager (myself included) is going to take hours out of their already busy day to put together a 1000 - 5000 case beer order week to week (and I kinda sorta know beer, imagine a manager who doesn't). I would need a metric shit ton more money.

 

This, exactly.

Jesus, do you have proprietary software to manage that volume, and then use reps to add some 'cool stuff?'

 

My boss does but I do not. The reps are mainly there for the day to day operations. Their job is to make sure I don't run out of product for 7 days. They have all the numbers going back 2-3 years. Now when it comes to rare/limited items, I get an e mail every week from the distributors that carry those items. Those kind of things fall on me to order. You also have to know your clientele. Just because I'm able to order Drie Fontenein doesn't mean I necessarily will although there's some Tilquin Pinot Gris/Noir in my cooler door as I type.

 

We’re a 3 tier system here in NC, how effective a sales guy is to the company depends on the company. Breweries like Old Mecklengurg and Red Oak being reasonably local are watchdogs on their products. They check dates, they check storage conditions, they’re accessible. How a Brewery like Firestone Walker does it I haven’t a clue, they’re an example of really how it doesn’t work well. The Distributors are useless in this equation, in many place they not only deliver they also stock, and it’s quite common to see old beers on the shelf, hell I've found many past the date codes at a place like Total Wine. If your a small retailer you just have to check dates, and send back what’s unacceptable. They only want to get the product out of their warehouse and into the stores, if distributors were helpful and useful everything they sold would be checked. FW sells say Tryon 3 month old beer off the truck the distributor should refuse the shipment. This is where communication comes into play, the breweries don’t send out old beer, the distributors don’t ship out old beer everyone is good.

As for buying thru the mail it’s illegal in many states, and I’ve never seen bottling dates, so odds are your buying older product depending on what it is. Fine for Stouts, but probably not ideal for IPAS.