From the Land of Beer Wenchery...a Cautionary Tale

And not for the usual “oh there Liz goes again” reasons either.
No, today’s round of red-faced fury comes from my other life: that of “Beer Wench” or more appropriately in this case: owner and marketing director of a growing and successful craft microbrewery.


I found out yesterday, after a really great rah-rah-rally sales meeting that one of my biggest grocery store chain accounts had dropped me from their shelves. Now, don’t get me wrong. I know the big chains are in it for the money. Many simply don’t give a rip about truly supporting local.  It’s the way this happened that made me nearly apoplectic and frankly sleepless last night.


Here is the deal: The beer shelf you see at any large store is called a “set.” The shelves look the way they do on purpose, with design.  There is a reason certain beers are eye level, and others near the floor. Why some have large stacks over by the grill-able meat section and others occupy only one, simple, unobtrusive, not-hurting-anybody slot in the cooler.  Large beer companies “volunteer” to “help” large store managers come up with these “sets” based on their “study” of “sales data” for the “category” (in this case: beer).  There are 2 large beer companies, in case you were wondering. One is the “King” and the other “Tastes Great/Less Filling” so as not to name names. That’s right. A macro brewing company in Missouri receives and analyzes the data from unnamed large grocery store chain A, strokes it’s collective bearded chin and says “Well, we promise to come and service this set for the next X number of months and we highly recommend you set your beer shelves up like: this.”


And the “this” that was presented yesterday to the large chain to the new “category manager” in another state did not include my beer. Come to find out it did not include a lot of very fine (and more established) Michigan beers.

Let me put in publishing terms for you:
Let’s say Borders Barnes & Noble downsized or whatever and no longer wanted or could manage to organize their romance section. “No problem!” swoops in Large Publisher A. “We shall help you with this! Merely give us all your sales data for the last 18 months and allow us to sort out how you should REALLY be selling this genre.”


“I don’t know,” Says at least one bookstore employee. “Sounds a little like fixing to me.”


“Nonsense” Scoffs Large Publisher A. “Not only will we conduct this exhaustive sales analysis using our huge department of smarty pants sales analysts, we will send our local minions out daily to your store to dust the book shelves and give foot massages to the staff. Hey, we might even send over some of those hot cover models….you know, for the poor single gals behind the counter…” nudge/wink.


“Well…ok.” B&N person says, relieved because they are not really into that genre anyway and got assigned to after being pulled from YA a.k.a. the Vampire Section.


So the book shelf is newly “set.” And features books from Large Publishers A,B,C,D and a few from E because, you know, they are really no threat to A or B. And when the excited new writer, told her book is “on the shelf officially” after a lot of hard work talking to B&N and promoting her ass off shows up—guess what? No Book.


“Sorry,” said frazzled and now dazzled by the gleaming torso of the promised and delivered cover models and foot massages B&N employee. “You weren’t selling enough. Or at least that’s what THEY said….” she points to the local minions of Large Publisher A who are busy dusting off covers and restocking, and clapping themselves on the back for a job well done.

It’s borderline corporate level sabotage, anti trust and conflict of interest all in one steaming pile of sh*t. Truly. But it’s how it gets done at that level. And so I shall get my sweet arse down to Cincinnati and chat with said new category manager, show him the 2 years of same store sales data I have in my hot little hand for my product and talk my way BACK onto Ann Arbor shelves of Unnamed Large Grocery Store Chain—you know, again. Like I did 2 years ago. Annoying. But perhaps a good exercise of the patience muscle. God knows mine is atrophied.




Speaking of sabotage, I’m doing first rounds of edits on Cheeky Blonde, a brewery-based intrigue romance. It releases July 8 from Decadent Publishing. It’s funny, fast-paced and set in the unique to many world of craft brewing. I think you will love it!
Blurb:

Cheers,
Liz