Your Product Range
Your Product Range
Your Target CustomersThe range of products you offer should be clearly focused on the types of customers you want to retain and attract. Once you are clear about who your target customers are, you then need to offer them the kind of drinks that they want. Different types of clientele demand different types of products. For example, a Young Person’s Venue (YPV) must stock a wide range of Premium Packaged Spirits (PPS) to meet the demands of the target customers it is aiming to reach. A destination food pub must stock a range of wines and soft drinks to meet the needs of its customers.
Regional Demands
There are often regional variations in the demand for certain products. Different areas have localised tastes and demands. For example, customers in your area may prefer ale that is dry in flavour, while people in other areas may prefer sweeter ale.
Fashionable Drinks
Different drinks come in and out of fashion. This is particularly true of drinks aimed at the 18–24 age group where some drinks are only popular for a few months. If this is the age group you are aiming to attract you will
need to keep up to date with changes in demand and with new products that are being launched that may appeal to your target customers. Unfortunately, some breweries and pub companies are slow to respond to changes in demand for these fashionable drinks, or decide not to stock them because they foresee only limited demand for them. This can be frustrating if you are tied to purchasing these types of drinks from them.
The Power Of Big Brands
Big brands are often well-established products that have a great deal of promotion and advertising behind them. Introducing big brand drinks into your product range is a good way of developing your sales.
Making Changes To Your Product Range
Your pub will have an established product range when you first take it over and you must decide whether it meets the needs of the customers you are targeting. Reviewing your product range should be a regular activity. Here are some recommendations:
- Seek advice from your brewery, pub company or other supplier on the types of drinks that will appeal to your target customers.
- Find out which brands are the biggest sellers in your region.
- Seek advice from your stocktaker on which products make you the most money.
- Check your stock reports to find slow-moving products and consider removing them from your product range. Slow-moving products tie up your money and put pressure on your cash flow.
- Keep up to date with new products and industry trends by reading the trade press.
- Keep up to date with the type of drinks your competitors are stocking.
- Obtain promotional support for the introduction of any new products.
- Make changes a step at a time, giving your customers the opportunity to accept them.
- Train your staff so that they are knowledgeable about any new products.
- Review the changes to see if they have been beneficial to your business.
Beer Styles
Beer is a general description for 4 different styles of beer: ales, lagers, stouts and porters. These styles are produced by different brewing methods, and result in beers with unique qualities and characteristics. Changing consumer tastes and heavyweight advertising campaigns have affected the popularity of these beers over the years, but beer still remains the biggest selling drink in public houses, typically accounting for three-quarters of total drinks sales.
Comparing Beers
There are some universal means of comparing beers, which can help establish a drink’s characteristics, these are:
- Alcohol by volume (ABV) – the strength of an alcoholic drink measured as the percentage of pure alcohol contained in the liquid.
- Original gravity (OG) – is a measure of beer’s density in relation to the density of water, as measured in the brewing process. The specific gravity of water is 1.000°. This can also be used to indicate the strength of a beer (the higher the gravity the higher the strength).
- International Bitterness Units (IBU) – provides a measure of the bitterness of beer: the higher number, the greater the bitterness.
- European Brewing Convention (EBC units) – is a means of measuring the colour of beer, where the lowest rating is the palest colour.
The typical characteristics of the main styles of beer (and ‘sub-styles’ of each) are given here: