first time ordering bottles - question about quantity

[jlevac]

We are about to put our first order of bottles. Looking at annual production of about 400 cases on our white spirit. Should we order all 4800 bottles at once or leave some cash in the bank account and free up space on the floor. Just wondering what people are doing. thanks

J

[tl5612]

I think it'll depend on a few things... and you'll know what to do.

- is it cheaper to buy them all at once?

- will these bottles ever run out of stock nationally? how often are they manufactured? nothing worse than waiting on a vague manufacture date... (are they French!?)

- how much is shipping per delivery?

- how tight is cash flow?

- how much space do you have?

If possible I would agree with the seller to buy 4,800 bottles over the year, but only take delivery and pay for the bottles when you need them. This will mean you'll never be stuck on supply, space, and you might secure a cheaper price by agreeing to this quantity (if there is a discount).

1 year's worth of stock is a lot to hold. Too much really. Quarterly deliveries would be good, roughly 1 pallet at a time.

You'll run into a similar issue with labels too I reckon. As the cost of these goes down significantly with quantity! Again, aim to agree to buy 4,800 - get the price for that quantity, and pay and take delivery on them quarterly (max.) - or something like that.

[hiredguns]

Good advice about the glass. (+1 on the French comment).

Having to warehouse a larger quantity of labels isn't nearly as much of a (space) issue as storing a large quantiy of glass. I'd suggest doing the full run of labels in one order. The printers are going to want to run the labels just once and probably won't be interested in storing the extras and shipping them to you on a regular basis. (At least that's been my experience with printers.)

[Natrat]

Depends on quantities...I don't actually recommend warehousing labels, since the adhesive and any aqueous coatings will degrade over time. If you order a million labels to get a low price, and 700000 get turfed after 2 years, that's a net loss. It depends on your paper/plastic stock, adhesive, and backing, but I find that labels tend to degrade quickly past the 9 month mark. If you are using cold glue and paper labels, they last for decades. If you are using pressure sensitive labels on a small diameter body, 9 months.

The thing about glass is that many of the resellers dropship from the manufacturer (there are a few exceptions) once you hit a certain volume. If you can take full-height pallets of bulk glass, you save considerably. On one bottle style I saw a drop from 207.36/gross to 112.32/gross just by agreeing to take a full truckload of bulk glass. That, in fact, meant I could take 26 pallets full height for the price I was paying for 12 pallets half height! (once you factored in shipping)

If you have spare warehouse for cooperage that isn't full of barrels, yet, warehousing 4 or 8 pallets is not a big deal, and you will save on shipping.

[TetonDistillery]

The price for bottles when buying only 5,000 is WAY higher.

If you can afford to step up to 20,000 bottles (a full container) you will likely cut your cost per bottle by 50% or more.

That has been my experience.

[Palmetto Coast]

I agree with most of the comments here. However, let's look at a few deciding factors

It seems that your predictions are looking at 12 bottles/cs. Many distributors seriously suggest (require) 6 bottle cases from us smaller folks. I'm not saying you can't do 4800 bottles per year, just make sure which way your distributor wants those bottles packaged. There will probably be a broken case fee (basically, where they open your cases and repack into a mixed case), especially if you go 12/cs.

Are your bottles shipped in cases that you can re-use or are they shipped bulk? How many bottles per pallet? We use two different bottles, both shipped in cases. On comes 6/cs, the other comes 12/cs. We have to have new cases made for our 12/cs bottles.

I'm getting wordy here. If you are worried about space, buying 20,000 bottles doesn't make sense. Your 4800 bottles is roughly 4 pallets. If you have limited space and funds, I would suggest getting 2 pallets. Reorder when you use an entire pallet. That way you never run out. You generally get reduced shipping charges at 3 pallets, though. In fact, the amount we saved shipping 3 together rather than in 2 orders, was equal to the price of a pallet of bottles.

Just my thoughts.

Todd

[craftersglass]

The price for bottles when buying only 5,000 is WAY higher.

If you can afford to step up to 20,000 bottles (a full container) you will likely cut your cost per bottle by 50% or more.

That has been my experience.

This. Many people fail to realize this. However, I understand this does not solve the issue of warehousing.

[jlevac]

20000 bottles would be nice, but it's all about cash flow in the first few years for us. The cost of warehousing 20000 bottles would eliminate all savings at this point as well. I wish we had more money and more sq/ft :-)

[TetonDistillery]

20000 bottles would be nice, but it's all about cash flow in the first few years for us. The cost of warehousing 20000 bottles would eliminate all savings at this point as well. I wish we had more money and more sq/ft :-)

The cost of a storage unit is about $100 per month. Store the extra 15,000 bottles there, keep 5,000 bottles in your distillery.

My guess is that you are paying between $2 to $3 per bottle when buying only 5,000 bottles.

Unless you have some unique custom mold bottle, that same bottle would likely be under $1 per bottle if purchased in quantity of 20,000 (full container from China). So the savings per bottle are massive and is more than enough to cover $100 per month for storage.

[craftersglass]

Teton, If everyone realized what you do I think we would see a lot more creativity from a packaging perspective in our industry.