By Herr Mike
If there is one thing that pisses me off is when I go into a liquor store to buy beer and I have to play “The Beer Price Guessing Game”!
I’ve been buying beer since I was legal over 30 years ago and I’m stilled amazed how liquor stores still can’t put the price of the beer they are selling on the shelf.
If you own any type of retail business and you are trying to sell merchandise don’t you want your customers to know how much something costs so they can make a decision on whether to buy it or not? Isn’t a retail store in the business of making money? Seems like a no brainier to me.
When I go to a liquor store I really don’t have time to keep asking someone what the price of a beer is especially when there are so many types of beer on the market today. Or worse, when you bring the beer up to the register and they ring up a price way higher than you expected. “Uh no thanks! You can just put that beer back on the shelf.”
I worked for a beer distributor for a few years so I know what goes on behind the scenes in a store before a beer actually is put on the shelf. There are some exceptions why a beer might not have a price on it, like if the shelf was just stocked and a physical price tag wasn’t created yet for that beer. But when you go back to the store days or weeks later and there is still no price, that’s just being lazy.
I just had an episode the other day at a local liquor store where I saw a beer I was interested in buying on the floor with no price and I asked the gentleman working there “Do you know the price of this beer?” He said “It’s not in the system yet and I’m checking in a delivery so can you come back later?” Really? So I ended walking out of the store (without buying anything) and I ended up buying that beer at another store a day later. Your loss pal!
I know liquor stores have a lot of SKUs to price but if you are too lazy to put a price on a six pack, four pack or single bottle of beer then you won’t be getting too much business from me.
Have you ever had to play “The Beer Price Guessing Game”? Let me know your story in the comments below.
Had this work in my favor once. Went to my favorite liquor store and they had Stone bombers of Oakmeal stout on the shelf but no prices. Got in line (a very long line) for the price check and got the, “That isn’t in the system yet. Check back later.” Went there the next night and grabbed a bottle and waited in line for a price check. Got to the front and the same cashier told me, “Sorry, still isn’t in the system but I’ll go ahead and ring it up for our usual single can price.” I bought it for $1.75. The next day? $17.99 a bomber. Should have grabbed 10 of them…