MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – More consumers are eschewing drinking in a bar in favor of buying alcohol for home consumption, ABC News reports. Retailers are getting creative to tap into this growing trend.
For example, a South Carolina Piggly Wiggly store installed taps that dispense craft beers into half-gallon glass containers called growlers. Customers can’t imbibe the beer in the store, though. “It’s a lot cheaper to buy it from us than to pay $4 or $5 for a beer at a bar,” said store manager Timmy Parrott.
More stores are shoring up their off-premises alcohol sales to meet the growing demand. Walgreens will start stocking beer and wine in its stores again after a more than 10-year hiatus, while Family Dollar started testing beer sales at some Florida stores this year.
There was “a groundswell of interest saying, ‘Hey, now that you’ve got these great coolers here, it’d be great if you stocked some beer, too,’” said Family Dollar spokesman Josh Braverman.
Between last September and this year’s, the number of U.S. stores offering off-premises beer for sale soared by close to 2,600, while retailers adding wine jumped by more than 3,000, according to Nielsen. That increase happened even though the total number of U.S. grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores and other retail locations dropped by more than 3,000.
“While there’s lots of disarray going out there in general because of the economy, there are more stores that are deciding they want to get into the beverage alcohol business,” said Danny Brager, vice president and group client director for the beverage alcohol team at Nielsen.
The recession is driving the trend as cost-conscious consumers are staying home to drink instead of going to a bar or restaurant. For retailers, alcohol products also increase sales of other grocery products, such as cheese, because consumers want to buy something to go with their beer or wine.