I don’t like them myself but hopefully you keep a small stock of IPA choices.
** Carry seasonal beers**; especially Octoberfest in October. Porters for December & January though I drink them year round, but I’m not typical. A few Shandies in the summer.
Get some of those free beer ads and lights that distributors like to give away. Make them obvious.
Make a little room for any local craft beers that bottle.
If someone regularly looks for an oddball beer, ensure you keep them supplied. They will do advertising for you. Wisconsin doesn’t get Yuengling but I was using a nice little liquor store that had Yuengling Porter; he probably only moved 2 cases a month but it never lingered. They dropped it and I moved on to a larger chain that always has it. Yes, they knew a steady customer was looking for it, a few times I checked to see when it was getting delivered as someone beat me to their small supply.
If the gas station is the only competition, offer alcohol choices that they don’t. There will be some overlap of the more popular brands, but even if you use the same distributor you should be able to offer a different product mix, and likely have more space available than the gas station to carry a bigger selection. So walk through the gas station, take notes, and do something that offers your customers an alternative to the gas station.
Do you have a sign outside that makes it clear you sell beer? Just displaying a sale price or something like that? Sometimes, when I’m in the middle of nowhere and drive by a grocery store, I’ll look to see if any beer is advertised. If not, I assume the grocery doesn’t sell beer, or I don’t care enough to pull over and figure it out for myself. That actually is something that does drive sales for me. Same with gas stations. A lot of gas stations around here don’t sell beer (I don’t think any in Chicago are allowed to, but that’s just an assumption since I haven’t seen it, but, depending on the municipality, the subutbs do.) So if I want to pick up some beer or wine after work, I pass by gas stations and look to see if they at least had a Budweiser or Miller sign out front.
Is the area very religious of the sects that disapprove of alcohol? It has been my experience that in areas where the local churches rally against alcohol, the locals won’t buy their booze where their neighbors might see them. That doesn’t mean they don’t buy booze. They’ll just drive out of their neighborhood where they think they won’t be recognized and stock up.
What percentage of total shelf space does alcohol occupy? Health and beauty? Hardware?
What is the location of the alcohol shelf space? Front of store, back of store, middle? How does this compare to the other categories? Can I see it readily or do I have to browse?
As I’m sure you are aware, retail sales is as much about shelf space and location as it is about product. Profit per square foot is the big metric.
Allow me to introduce you to the Riverside Red X. Just outside KC, you can find pretty much anything there - they make their money on liquor, cigarettes and lottery, but they have hardware, some clothing, some toys, etc. If it was late and a kid suddenly remembered a school project, you could probably find what you needed at Red X.
you know how dumb I am? I actually typed the sentence “I’m not familiar with the concept of grocery stores selling nuts and bolts” even though we have a regional chain (Meijer) which does just that.