Beer UPC Codes - Spend a little

Discussion in 'Beer Talk' started by barneyrubble, Jan 11, 2024.

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  1. barneyrubble

    barneyrubble Pooh-Bah (2,305) Aug 21, 2020 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Beer UPC Codes- So you go onto your local emporiums website to find out what is on sale or to perhaps find a new beer or you just are doing a dive into a particular style. Many websites for emporiums in CO are back ended by a provider in New York. To say this provider is great is an understatement, but that is another story.

    What is a problem is the use of a single UPC code on multiple beers from a single brewer. For example, you can use search up Native Colorado Imperial Porter at my local emporiums website and find that is it listed. Yet a picture is listed of Native Colorado Winterfest. When I went in and tried to buy the Porter, I was told they use the same UPC and no they do not have the Porter.

    Wait ................What? According to the Native Colorado (Coors) website, only Winterfest is a seasonal, so why does the UPC belong to the that and the Porter?

    To confound things further, it seems UPC codes cost money, who would have thunk, yet they are about the price of a six pack.

    Wait ..............you telling me Coors cannot afford two separate UPC codes for two distinct beers?

    And this is not the only example from my discussions with the folks at the emporium.

    Can it be for the convenience of the disty? Or the retatiler? Not when the back-end provider cannot distinguish between a seasonal or yearlong and cannot get the right fotos.

    I am sure I am missing some nuance, but as a consumer, I am fraught.

    Thoughts?
     
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  2. FBarber

    FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,325) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Feel like @BeerCruncher would have some thoughts on this - I know a single UPC for seasonal beers is pretty common.
     
    oneeye, ChicagoJ, PapaGoose03 and 2 others like this.
  3. barneyrubble

    barneyrubble Pooh-Bah (2,305) Aug 21, 2020 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Yet, you can see how it would be problematic for the IT guys coding the website.

    And even worse if you are trying to manage an outgoing seasonal that has an incoming seasonal replacement? I know from my ops days, managing dead or dying inventory that cannot be differentiated from fresh could be a real problemo!
     
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  4. cryptichead

    cryptichead Grand Pooh-Bah (4,857) Jul 3, 2014 Illinois
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Yeah sometimes they'll scan something at Binnys and 5 items pop up on the screen. The clerk then tries to match whatever it is I'm buying to one of the items on the list.
     
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  5. BeerCruncher

    BeerCruncher Pundit (764) Aug 4, 2013 Illinois
    Trader

    Many chain stores require this for seasonal beers where you only have one out in the world at a time. They think of it as a single placement on the shelf since it is, therefore they want 1 barcode and therefore them all to be the same price. Therefore they have no idea how your individual seasonals are performing, though they can guess based on the month, but all they care about is your seasonal overall because to them it’s 1 beer.

    Recently Walmart has pushed back on this and wants the opposite, so breweries have to either change, or not have a chance to get their seasonals into that particular chain. Others may follow and it could flip things some day.

    This is behind a paywall but you can catch the beginning of it:

    https://brewingindustryguide.com/breweries-face-tough-decisions-on-upcs/
     
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  6. FBarber

    FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,325) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Yup, that was exactly the place I had in mind while typing that up
     
  7. thebeeremptor

    thebeeremptor Pundit (764) Aug 12, 2018 California
    BA4LYFE Society Trader

    It really is just kind of a clusterfuck overall. At the retail level, we either have one UPC/SKU tied to several seasonal beers for each brewery, which leads to customer confusion about which one we might actually have in store if they're browsing online, or multiple UPC/SKUs for each seasonal beer for each brewery, which is an absolute logistical nightmare to manage for everyone but the customer, who will know exactly which one we have.

    I don't know how the intricacies at the distro level but it seems to me the current system we've got (one UPC/SKU for seasonals overall, broadly speaking) is the least problematic for the distributor and retailer.

    I can only imagine how many pages my fucking order lists would be if every brewery got individual SKUs and descriptions for each one of their seasonals. Extrapolate that out to include every one of their one-offs and special releases too (because you know they'd ask) and it would take half an hour for the printer to print all that...
     
  8. barneyrubble

    barneyrubble Pooh-Bah (2,305) Aug 21, 2020 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Imagine if a t shirt maker with 32 colors used 1 upc code..... convenience, printer time or what not, a code for each is the way to do it right. Just baffling how an industry could be so stuck.
     
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  9. BeerCruncher

    BeerCruncher Pundit (764) Aug 4, 2013 Illinois
    Trader

    It doesn't matter to the brewery, they just do what the retailers want since it's their systems. The BIG challenge is when one major retailer wants it one way, but another wants it another. That's what's beginning to happen...
     
  10. teromous

    teromous Grand Pooh-Bah (3,180) Mar 21, 2010 Virginia
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    This is probably the reason I have been getting discounted seasonals from several stores. They'll put up a shelf tag with the name of the beer which doesn't even match what's on the label.
     
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  11. jesskidden

    jesskidden Grand Pooh-Bah (3,145) Aug 10, 2005 New Jersey
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I almost never buy fruit-flavored beer or buy a single, but 15-20 years ago 21st Amendment's Watermelon Wheat came up in a conversation and, though I suspected it was as bad as it was (is?), I told the guy (maybe it was here?) I'd try one. I don't follow that technique often - I'll happily criticize a beer I have never consumed. I mean, c'mon... have you seen some of the !@#$ they put in beer?

    Did a big beer shopping trip to a not-so-local retailer, maybe adding up to 2 or 3 cases + a single can of that beer. Got home, was checking the receipt and saw that by scanning the single can's bar code (the only barcode on a sixpack held together with those plastic rings, of course*) it rang up as the entire sixpack. WTF! (Making the purchase even worse that I'd expected!).

    Even though it meant a 20 mile trip one-way, I determined I'd return it the following week. Oh, but how could I prove I'd only bought 1 can and not a sixpack? I supposed "Really? You think I'd buy a sixpack of a watermelon flavored beer? I belong to your discount membership thing - look at my past decade of beer purchases!" wouldn't be enough to convince them.

    But it did:
    [​IMG]
    And taught me a lesson (again) - Check your receipt before you pay or, at least, before you leave the store!

    (* Addendum - Did they use rings back then? Or were they already using the cardboard boxes? Whatever- the receipt shows I got charged initially for the full sixpack.)
     
    #11 jesskidden, Jan 11, 2024
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2024
  12. teromous

    teromous Grand Pooh-Bah (3,180) Mar 21, 2010 Virginia
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Total Wine is a big offender of this. I always have to check the small digital display on the credit card payment machine because they will ring up mix-a-six singles as full packs all the time.
     
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  13. MutuelsMark

    MutuelsMark Grand Pooh-Bah (5,787) Jan 23, 2015 Kentucky
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader


    Well this really throws a wrench into the idea of having a BA app have a barcode lookup for a beer!
     
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  14. FBarber

    FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,325) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Untappd has it and it works well. Seasonal beers just have multiple options tied to the UPC and you select the one that it is.
     
    Jaycase and ChicagoJ like this.
  15. MostlyNorwegian

    MostlyNorwegian Pooh-Bah (2,236) Feb 5, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    Yes. They exist, and with a breweries that might have a several beers that exist under each one. They are sort of used as a kind of price point separator.
     
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