ND1021113

Title: Walmart Enlarges Craft Beer Assortment

Description: The discount retailer will give the category more shelf space.

Page Content:

BENTONVILLE, Ark. ? Walmart is tapping into the craft beer craze by devoting more space to the category, Advertising Age reports. The discount retailer is the top U.S. seller of beer.

�

Former Walmart CEO Lee Scott noted that the move is ?clearly is in line with the fact we've got to make more space, we have to have more representation on assortment.?

�

With Walmart?s beginnings tied to price and assortment, ?you can't take an area like beer where people are moving to craft and ?under-assort? yourself because the person who is buying craft beer and wants that assortment will drive to Kroger and pay the 15 percent more,? said Scott.

�

Local stores will have input into which new craft beers to buy. ?I'll tell you how it happens at Walmart: You have a 26-year-old buyer who makes the decision. The vice president is supposed to do a walk-through with them on why did you do this how did you do it. ? [But] it is the buyer who is making that decision on those individual stores,? said Scott.

�

Currently, craft beer accounts for around 5 percent of the overall beer market, but its 14 percent growth is the only positive thing about the overall category, which has experienced a 2 percent drop.

�

?Anyone who thinks this has peaked, we've maxed it out totally, I got news for ya ? not yet,? said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketers Insights. ?Of course there is a theoretical limit and it is going to separate more out into winners and losers over time. But this is a trend that right now has the wind at its back.?

?

Content Subject: Marketing/Merchandising

Formatted Article Date: October 21, 2011

find and rely really nice stories