Routine Weekend

[kevin_standlee]

We were too tired to do all of our grocery shopping last night, so this afternoon we went back into Reno/Sparks to finish the weekend shopping. First we went to the Cost Plus World Market in North Sparks, where we'd not been before, hoping to track down some Fentimans Curiosity Cola. We'd been told by the people at the Reno store yesterday that they were in the process of discontinuing carrying it "because it was too popular," which doesn't make a lot of sense to us. We hoped to catch the last of the stock in North Sparks; alas, we were too late and they had already sold the last bottles. An inquiry to CPWM's web team returned a useless, non-committal answer. Now we have to hope that Whole Foods Market (also listed as a retailer of this cola on the company web site) will actually stock it, because Lisa likes it a lot.

The rest of the day was routine. The stores were busy, but not utterly jammed, which is good. We skipped eating dinner in Reno again this weekend and headed home, arriving just after full dark. After dinner, we went for a walk in the -6°C chill. No clouds tonight, and even in town, there were a lot of stars visible, but the lack of cloud cover means it's apt to get even colder tonight. Time to throw an extra log on the fire and blanket on the bed.

Comments

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

It's too popular so we're not carrying it. Two possibilities: there's a required retail price set by the manufacturer which limits their profit margins, which are lower than competing brands and the retail stores think they will make more profit from other fizzy sugar water brands; or, they keep running out, their supplier can't provide enough stock and they're losing goodwill by claiming to stock it but to often being out.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The latter is possible; I don't think the former is possible under US trade rules. Besides, Cost Plus World Market specializes in "international" foods and charges accordingly. Those bottles of cola are $2 each!

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

"Too popular?" We have a regional fast food chain that I think is better (in terms of food taste, variety, and service) than most of the national chains. Their signature sandwich used to be available in an "Italian" flavored variety, but they dropped the Italian version long ago. They recently brought back the Italian version "for a limited time" although they claim it was -- and currently is -- their most popular version. Perhaps it's a marketing ploy but it's still annoying.