Soda Bottle Sizes

Factual Questions
1

Why is it that you can buy individual 20oz. bottles of soda from convenience stores, but if you want to buy a 6-pack, you can only buy the 24oz. size?

2

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that companies even make 20oz 6 paks.

The big deal about 24 oz. 6 paks (at least Pepsi made a big fuss about it) is that they contain the same amount of soda as a 12 pak of cans.

3

I don’t think they make 20oz 6 packs either. What I want to know is WHY they don’t make 20oz 6packs. I find it a more useful size than 24oz, for some reason.

4
      • Because the store probably got a bigger discount on their price of the 24 oz-size. In other words, they’d make less money by selling six 20-oz bottles at a 6-pack price than they would if they sold six 24-oz bottles at a six-pack price.
  • Most convenience stores around where I am don’t carry both sizes, unless there’s special curcumstances, such as the 20-oz being a glass bottle (although that’s usually a 16-oz bottle—that’s made of glass, but anyway).
  • When Coke and Pepsi moved from 20-oz plastic bottles to 24-oz plastic bottles, they probably increased their price of the sodas more than they increased their cost of the sodas, but I don’t know for certain. Which means that the soda companies are “losing” money selling one of those two sizes, but that’s sales for you. Bigger package = more customer appeal, and they can’t go inflating the bottle with mostly air like chip makers have done lately, so they had to actually make the sodas bigger. One of them went to 20-oz bottles, and then the other one did, and later on Dr. Pepper/7-Up did too, so it is probably a market-grabbing move that’s become a matter of who can hold on the longest. - MC
5

Ummm, I get 20oz 6-packs here in NC all the time. Where do you guys live?

6

New Jersey. Where else? :rolleyes: More idiosyncrasies per square mile than any other state in the union.

Here you can get single 20oz bottles in convenience stores, soda machines, and grocery stores, but I have yet to find any store that carries 6-packs of anything but the 24oz size (yes, and cans, too).

7

I’ve never seen a 24 oz bottle of soda.

In the DC area, we have 2 liter, 1 liter, 20 oz, 1/2 liter, and 12 oz cans.

8

I’ve never seen 6-packs of 20oz bottles in Washington, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 24oz bottle outside of a 6-pack either. I’ve seen 3-liter bottles, but only rarely (same with 18-packs and 36-packs of cans).

9

I’ve never seen a half-liter bottle. We had 16oz bottles, but I haven’t seen any in a while.

10

I saw a butt one time.

11

Talk about good timing! I’m in the DC area as well, and I got breakfast at the corner vendor this morning – a lemon poppyseed muffin and a Dr Pepper. Didn’t really pay much attention til I got to my office and opened it, but look at that – it’s 24 ounces! This is the first 24-ounce soda I’ve ever seen, so I think they’re gonna be slowwwwly making their way here.

Another soda oddity in the DC area is the 8-pack. Does anyone else have that? I believe it’s just Coke, but I can’t remember for sure, but in my grocery store they replaced the 6-packs of 20-ounce Cokes (yes, we’ve had those for awhile) with 8-packs of, I think, 13.4 or 14.4 ounce bottles. I may be off a bit on the numbers, but it’s some weird thing. Possibly a half-liter? No, that’s 16.9, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what it is, I dunno. But it’s an 8-pack, that’s for sure!

12

Around here (MI) those eight-packs of half-liters (16.9 oz) are the norm. We no longer get six-packs of 20s, and I’ve never seen a 24 oz bottle except on random odd occasions.

LL