re: Total Wine & More Coming to Metairie

I'm in fine wine sales. Total wine is sort of the benchmark for pricing for 70%+ of my business. Pain in my arse sometimes.

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It will be interesting to see what brands they run at 6% as "loss leaders" since some grocery stores run 6% prices on some items already.

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Forgot about the markup law, but it's not as much about loss leading as it is about selling something below the brand's value.

If the producer of say a certain type of popular vodka wants their retail price to be $19.99, they'll offer the store a cost of $14-15 so the seller can make 25-30% margin on it. Then they'll give deal pricing where if you buy X amount of cases, you can get it for $12, run it on special for $17.99 and still make 30%. Producer/distributor gets cases out the door, retailer sells more product and makes money. Win-win.

Total takes that $12 cost, and with Louisiana mandatory markup, sells it at $12.72. They mail flyers everywhere, and people come in to buy it. They can afford to make 72 cents on each bottle because people aren't just buying that vodka. They'll grab some wine, beer, etc or ask for help and be lead to the private label, 40% margin whiskey.

Then the producer is pissed because they've worked to create a value for their product that is consistent across the nation, give or take a dollar or so either way. But are they going to stop selling to total? No, their buying power is too big so they get to dictate a lot, very similar to Wal Mart.