Samuel AndersonManaging Partner, BevAssets, LLC · Just Pick Up The Phone 📞 | Joy 🦋 | Empowering individuals through meaningful connections, one person at a time.

Out of Stock is not Strategy #winning #beverages

8 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the speaker emphasizes that beverage brands must maintain roughly a 95% fill rate to keep shelf space with major retailers such as Walmart, BevMo, and Total. He warns that retailers will not protect inventory that frequently goes out of stock because it directly impacts their revenue and opens space for competing brands. The speaker stresses that entering the beverage market requires sufficient capital to keep products consistently available when retailers request shipments. He illustrates the point with a real‑world example: a brand that expanded into 38 states and secured placement at BevMo and Total, but ultimately failed because it could not meet the demand and ran out of stock, leading retailers to drop the brand. The overall message is that out‑of‑stock situations are not a viable strategy; reliable inventory and adequate financing are essential for success in the beverage retail space.

Chapters

You have to have a 95% fill rate when these people come knocking on your door. If you don't, they're going to disappear because that shelf space is at premium. That is the biggest thing I see from a production standpoint. If you're going to get in this business, make sure you have the capital to actually have the product available when they come knocking on your door. Because guess what? Walmart is not going to protect your shelf space because if they go out of stock, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars they're losing. And there's 18 brands behind you. Waiting for that shelf space. So, I would tell you, careful what you wish for too. In this case, they went into BevMo, they went into Total, they got 38 states. Everybody's like, yay. But when they came knocking on the door, the product wasn't available. And that is what caused the demise of that brand and that company, by the way.