Why 375ml beat 750ml
When we developed the Beckett's line, the obvious move was to look like everyone else. Every non-alcoholic spirit on the shelf came in a 750ml bottle at $35 or more.
We went the other way. The line launched with four non-alcoholic spirits in 375ml bottles and four ready to drink non-alcoholic cocktails. The smaller bottle let us put a new kind of product on shelf for under $20.
That price was the strategy. Non-alcoholic spirits were new to most shoppers. Asking someone to pay $35 to try something they have never tasted is asking them to take a risk. At under $20, trying it is easy, and the second purchase is where a brand is really built.
The 375ml doubled the sales velocity of the 750ml format, and Beckett's became the number three volume seller in the Total Wine & More non-alcoholic set, behind only Athletic Brewing and Heineken 0.0.
This is a boardroom decision, and it is one that leadership teams entering non-alcoholic often get wrong. They bring the pricing logic of the category they know into a category the shopper does not know yet. Format, price and trial come before margin per unit.
If your company is moving into non-alcoholic or functional drinks, the format and price decisions you make in the first six months will set your velocity for years.
