Breadth vs depth

Most of the single bottles and cans of beer and cider in the off-trade in this country are sold in multibuy offers, 4 for £6, 3 for £5, 2 for £4 or whatever. Unless your product is already priced below the level of the multibuy, if it’s not included your volumes are going to be dramatically reduced. From the retailer’s point of view, it increases sales throughput and presents the customer with a more attractive-looking offer, while the customer is likely to feel that they are getting a good deal.

However, it has obvious downsides. It prevents the establishment of proper price stratification, discriminating against weaker beers and making it impossible for brewers to establish a price premium. Plus it puts pressure on suppliers to come up with products that can be sold within that price framework. As Ed Wray writes here, the 4 for £6 level has been fixed for a number of years and, with rising inflation, must now be approaching breaking point.

But it is a fact of life that currently dominates the marketplace for premium beers and ciders in the off-trade. I thought it would be interesting to run a Twitter poll to see how people approached it. As you can see, the results were fairly evenly spread across the board, with all options getting strong support, although always buying different ones came out on top.

POLL: When buying beer or cider in multibuy offers (4 for £6, 3 for £5 etc) what is your usual approach?

— Ebenezer Mudge 🌸🎅🍻 (@oldmudgie) December 8, 2021

The first option is obviously the one that would appeal to the beer enthusiast, who wants to maximise the number of different ones tried. But even the more mainstream buyer may well want to try something new, or to mix and match different styles and strengths depending on the occasion.

Then there are various levels of people sometimes, or often, wanting to double up on particular favourites, until we reach the stage where buying three or four the same becomes the norm. In fact, one person replied “I always buy the same, it didn't really occur to me to mix and match in fact!” The seeker after endless variety may find this hard to understand, but it has to be remembered that most off-trade beer in the UK, in volume terms, is sold in cans in multipacks of 4 or 6, or slabs of various sizes. Most buyers are perfectly happy to have a lot that are all the same. I suspect this is also more common amongst the 3 for £5 “international lagers” than the premium bottled ales.

Personally, I fall into the second category. There are some beers that are regular favourites, and others I’ll never touch, but I do like to ring the changes, and in any case I’m generally only drinking one on each occasion rather than having a session. There are occasional beers that I may buy two of, one example being Weetwood Eastgate Ale, an excellent example of a BBB that particularly appeals to my tastebuds, and which is only available locally in Morrisons.

As an aside, I don’t believe multibuys increase the overall level of beer purchased – that is driven by the price. If all the premium bottled ales were priced at £1.50, the supermarkets would sell just as much. They are a tactic of competition between retailers to have an offer that attracts consumers. And they are banned in Scotland anyway!