Category: retail

If you’ve been to Kentucky, then you’ve probably stopped at one of the many Liquor Barn locations. It’s been a cornerstone for bourbon buyers such as myself for many years. But now Liquor Barn has been acquired by GoPuff and we get a chance to sit down with Brad Williams, the Sr Category Manager for American Whiskey of GoPuff Brands, to talk about what it’s like to manage American Whiskey brands and barrel picks across geographies for the brand family of Liquor Barn, BevMo, and 400 other regional locations. Needless to say, it’s a lot of whiskey math and choosing barrels to go in the right markets. Brad gives us insight into keeping customers excited, what happens when a barrel pick flops, and where he sees buying trends happening.

Show Notes:

• Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about preference of small batch over single barrles
• Why is your title so long and what does it encompass?
• How did GoPuff start?
• How did competition in the market make you change strategies?
• Since GoPuff is across many states, does allocation go across states?
• How are you able to devote your time to the mass amount of single barrels selected?
• With your leverage can you make distilleries do special things that no one else can do?
• What happens when a barrel pick flops?
• How do you keep customers excited about more barrel picks?
• Do you try to have the largest bourbon selection across the state?
• What bourbon buying trends are you seeing?
• How do you deal with the haters that don’t like your barrel picks?
• What’s your criteria on judging whiskey for different markets?
• Support this podcast on Patreon

The post 419 – Making Bourbon Big at Retail with Brad Williams of GoPuff appeared first on BOURBON PURSUIT.

The idea of owning a liquor store sounds great, doesn’t it? It sounds like you get to play around with booze all day and you never have to worry about allocation ever again because you get to keep all the Pappy and Blanton’s for yourself. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a business that relies on margin to keep the doors open. And when those doors are open, you don’t really know what can happen next. Tony Konja is the owner of Keg N Bottle. We’ve talked about Keg N Bottle a few times because that’s our partner store for our barrel selections. But the real reason we have Tony on the show is talk about a deeper subject of the retail liquor business and that is theft. No matter what you get into, you have to assume there are terrible humans out there that will take advantage of any situation. Tony gives us an introspective look into how he combats theft from brick and mortar locations as well as online retail and how this business has even had him being held a gun point saying his last prayer.

Show Notes:

• Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about the end of the bourbon boom
• Can you share your background and how you got into owning a liquor store?
• Do you remember about theft at the grocery store?
• Can you describe the setup in your store with walls of liquor?
• Is there a magic formula for knowing the amount of theft to account for?
• What measures do you take to minimize theft?
• What products typically have a higher theft rate?
• Have you ever been held at gun point?
• Is there a bourbon stolen pretty regularly?
• How do you thwart illegitimate activity with online orders?
• Is there a reason to keep stores open later than 10pm?
• Can you talk about how private barrel picks can get stolen in California?
• How do you deal with customers that say they never received a package from a carrier?
• @kegnbottleusa
• Support this podcast on Patreon

The post 387 – Dealing With Bourbon and Theft at Retail with Tony Konja of Keg N Bottle appeared first on BOURBON PURSUIT.