Huge Beer Displays Hit Retail This 4th Of July

Summer is historically a peak period for beer sales.

It’s also a time when Big Beer companies are doing whatever they can to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape. And they are doing that with ginormous retail beer displays that stop shoppers in their tracks and entice a consumer to pick up a case (or three).

And the Fourth of July weekend presents an opportunity for beer companies like Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors that’s second to none.

You’re not going to see these mega-displays promoting craft beer brands. Small, independent brewers are lucky to receive any kind of shelf exposure at this time of year. This is about selling major brands like Budweiser or Coors Light.

Almost half of US shoppers report that displays play a big part in their decision to buy beer while grocery shopping, according to Molson Coors data. And nearly a third of shoppers say displays influence their decision to purchase a particular brand.

“When it comes to triggering purchase and driving incremental sales, the power of displays is pretty staggering,” Russell Fowler, senior manager of customer solutions at Molson Coors told Beer & Beyond.

To reinforce his point Fowler and his team put together eight facts that highlight their importance to Molson Coors’ bottom line…

1. Premium lights, such as Coors Light and Miller Lite, generate the most incremental sales of any beer segment when on display, accounting for $137 in additional sales per display. A full 60% of incremental sales of premium lights are generated from displays, per data from IRI Unify.
2. The Fourth of July, along with Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving, rank as the top incremental sales weeks of the year. Beer displays during the Fourth of July holiday provide as much incremental value to the category as Christmas and New Year’s combined, IRI data show.
3. Displays provide additional inventory to help retailers avoid out-of-stocks during key selling seasons like summer. With 87% of premium light buyers loyal to one brand, maintaining sufficient inventory is crucial to avoid losing the sale. And with nearly 40% of shoppers reporting they’ve encountered out-of-stocks, the industry is leaving up to $500 million in revenue on the table each year, according to an IRI OmniConsumer survey.
4. A quarter of beer shoppers in large-format stores, which include big-box discounters and grocers, say they purchase unplanned products, and 44% of them say those purchases were triggered by displays.
5. Nearly 50% of large-format shoppers indicate they purchase beer from a display during at least half of their trips. And nearly 10% say they purchase beer from a display nearly every shopping trip.
6. In convenience stores, 80% of shoppers do not pass by the primary beer location. Displaying beer in high-traffic locations drives conversion by reminding shoppers that beer is available.
7. Nearly a third of convenience store beer shoppers say they purchase unplanned products and 24% were triggered by a display, according to the Shopper Pulse survey.
8. Displays account for 76% of incremental dollars in convenience stores. Overall, beer generates $2.6 billion for the convenience channel when on display, per IRI.

So yeah, these things matter in the beer biz…

“Displays are the ultimate sales driver at retail,” Fowler added. “In fact, beer enjoys a 10% revenue lift when it’s on display.

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(H/T to Beer & Beyond  for their considerable help with this article)