size of cases, 12 or 6 bottle?

[natbouman]

This is an embarrassingly dumb question, but I'm unclear what size case I should be using in my business plan and projections. I talked to a couple people who said that a 6 bottle case was the industry standard, but I also see 12 bottles a lot--particularly in industry publications. For instance, the ACSA data project uses 12 bottle cases when describing volume growth in the craft sector. Seems like a silly thing, but if I'm imagining 6 bottle cases and I'm benchmarking my growth projections off of 12 bottle cases then I'm going to be off by a factor of 2x. Easy to correct, but I just want to be using the right size. What do you think?

[whiskeytango]

Id ask you.  What you're planing on producing and what are you planing on selling it for?  The biggest issue with 12 pack cases is when someone is selling something that is not a normal product IE vodka bourbon whatever.    Or if your product is going to be on the higher end of the price even if it's a standard type. 

It's a lot easier to get a buyer to pop for a 6 pack case of an unknown/expanisve item than it is to get them to try out a 12 pack.  Now if your planning on selling cheep vodka its a lot lower buy in for a 12 pack. 

 

[AK2]

We started with 12's, but as whiskeytango pointed out, buyers were very much against 12's for an expansive item.  We are all 6 bottle packs now.  

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

We ship in twelve packs as our wholesaler repacks as needed for the retailer fulfillment.

Avoid the expense of doing a custom six pack box and use the twelve pack your glass comes in.

[Bier Distillery]

This is probably going to be market/state specific, but in Michigan, 12 bottle 750ml cases are standard.

[Kindred Spirits]

With distribution being a goal, a lot of my clients start out with 6-pack cases. It is much easier to get new stores/states to buy a sixer, vs paying twice as much for the 12.

That being said, once established they switch over to a 12pk option to keep up with demand.

[Tom Lenerz]

It depends on your product and state, but most likely unless you are really affordable in distribution you probably want a 6 pack. Shelves usually hold 6 bottles in a single facing and many distributors charge an up charge for split bottle cases. This is something you should really have a discussion with your distributor with. If you are going to be mostly or exclusively tasting room sales it won’t matter other than your preference.

In the spirits industry it is pretty standard to report things like sales or production  in terms of 9 liter cases, but this is just done mathematically because of the different sizes, (1L, 1.75L, etc…) it helps correct for volume. We are a winery as well so internally we refer to 6 packs as boxes and 12 packs as cases to help keep it clear what number of bottles and volume of liquid we are talking about.