Coca Cola policies - only one shop per Soi?

[MaiDong]

My wife has started a small shop on our Soi, mostly due to the sheer laziness and incompetence of our next door neighbour who can't be arsed to wake up to open her shop before 11am and either doesn't have any stock or it's not refrigerated etc.

 

My wife contacted Coca Cola and a sales rep came today to check the shop and take ID card details etc. He called back later and said that Coca Cola doesn't want more than one shop on each Soi, now, this sounds like a bare-faced-lie to me, Coke probably doesn't care how many shops on each Soi sell their product, the-more-the-merrier I would imagine!

 

Unfortunately our lazy neighbours boyfriend is a Coke salesman, and definitely in the same office as the visiting salesman and it's a tightly-knit group in that office so we suspect he told the visiting salesman to spin this yarn on us.

 

Any experiences? Any shop owner husbands on this forum?

Edited September 9, 2016 by MaiDong

[BrainLife]

Of course 1 per soi is nonsense. Would not worry about it. The fridge they will give you will probably be second/third/fourth hand, but even a new one would eat your electric.

For fridge/cooling drinks and such, buy a horizontal fridge with glass sliders. The cold stays in (cold air is heavier then warm air) and your drinks will always be colder then with a door fridge.

At the bottom is also a large freezer unit for ice or rapid cooling of drinks.

On top there is also a cooled display for smaller items like lipo/m150/juice packs and such

 

Just buy what you need for coke and drinks at the macro or any other large cheap (online) supermarket

[charliebadenhop]

I have no idea about Thailand, but a long time ago in Japan, Coke would not allow but so many stores in an area to carry their product. 

 

Finding out the truth about this should be easy enough. 

[Terdsak]

Whether or not it's Coca Cola's official policy, in light of what you say about your neighbour's husband you would be wise to tread cautiously; he could perhaps stir up a good deal of trouble for you and your family.

[Commogwinto]

Piss your neighbour off and go ask the Pepsi agent

 

[louse1953]

9 minutes ago, Terdsak said:

Whether or not it's Coca Cola's official policy, in light of what you say about your neighbour's husband you would be wise to tread cautiously; he could perhaps stir up a good deal of trouble for you and your family.

Dear me,Henny Penny has arrived.

[MaiDong]

I'll not worry about my neighbour, we're friends with his family, my friends are his friends, he's just acting like a little boy in the whole saga, he's started to ignore the friends of ours who buy beer from our shop, even though he's known them since childhood, he has even spent many nights moaning about his lazy girlfriend, but when it came to the crunch, they close ranks!

 

My concern is that we can't get Coke, but what I'm really uncomfortable with is the fact that him and his co-worker have potentially lied on Coke's behalf, in any normal country that could end in a disciplinary for both of them, and possibly the supply to his GF's shop supply of Coke  being cut-off, I just wonder what will happen here, My wife is going to work her way up the chain at the coke call centre on Monday, let's see what happens

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2016 by MaiDong

[MaiDong]

2 hours ago, BrainLife said:

Of course 1 per soi is nonsense. Would not worry about it. The fridge they will give you will probably be second/third/fourth hand, but even a new one would eat your electric.

For fridge/cooling drinks and such, buy a horizontal fridge with glass sliders. The cold stays in (cold air is heavier then warm air) and your drinks will always be colder then with a door fridge.

At the bottom is also a large freezer unit for ice or rapid cooling of drinks.

On top there is also a cooled display for smaller items like lipo/m150/juice packs and such

 

Just buy what you need for coke and drinks at the macro or any other large cheap (online) supermarket

 

We've already got a fridge, it's a glass front fridge but even on full power for the last 30 days it's only cost us B300, and the beers are freezing cold! It's a new Panasonic fridge so that may have something to do with the energy usage.

 

We've discussed one of those stainless fridges you mention but it's not suitable for our needs, we've got a cooler with ice cold water in, that cools beer to freezing cold in about 20 minutes

[boonchu]

I have found that when Coke is on sale at Macro its cheaper than direct from coke. Only draw back is cash only.

[MaiDong]

27 minutes ago, boonchu said:

I have found that when Coke is on sale at Macro its cheaper than direct from coke. Only draw back is cash only.

 

We were looking specifically for the glass bottled coke though, I'm quite sure that's not available from Makro, or anywhere else apart from the Coke company, although some wholesalers might re-sell their crated glass bottles at a higher price.

 

I think we'll just use our local wholesale shop for cans and plastic bottles, they're slower sellers than the glass bottles though, that's for sure.

[Bannoi]

I prefer Pepsi

 

[MaiDong]

2 minutes ago, Bannoi said:

I prefer Pepsi

 

 

You might, it seems most Thais prefer Coke.

[maoro2013]

We just buy the stuff direct from the coke truck never had an issue and don't have one of their fridges, we have our own.

 

We are on a fairly big road so maybe  cannot be compared to a village soi 

 

I simply don't believe the assertion made by the Cole bloke virtually every shop carries Coke's products. Buy from a wholesaler instead and coke will have no control

[MaiDong]

2 minutes ago, maoro2013 said:

We just buy the stuff direct from the coke truck never had an issue and don't have one of their fridges, we have our own.

 

We are on a fairly big road so maybe  cannot be compared to a village soi 

 

I simply don't believe the assertion made by the Cole bloke virtually every shop carries Coke's products. Buy from a wholesaler instead and coke will have no control

 

That's interesting, so you just approached the Coke truck and they sold crates of glass-bottled Coke to you? Did you have to pay a deposit for the crates?

Edited September 10, 2016 by MaiDong

[tails]

doesn't surprise me, while I've not had any dealings in Thailand, back in Australia I've seen some strange/similar types of rulings made by coke reps

[MaiDong]

Just now, tails said:

doesn't surprise me, while I've not had any dealings in Thailand, back in Australia I've seen some strange/similar types of rulings made by coke reps

 

It doesn't surprise me either! The sales rep. might want to get his story straight for when his boss approaches him and asks him why he's trying to prevent the sale of the company's product, unless of course his boss protects his sales rep for fear of getting in trouble himself! How far up the chain can the protection go??

[maoro2013]

7 minutes ago, MaiDong said:

 

That's interesting, so you just approached the Coke truck and they sold crates of glass-bottled Coke to you? Did you have to pay a deposit for the crates?

We hardly sell any of the  bottled I  don't believe that was a factor in the post.

 

We wholesale to many small shops and we retail ourselves. Mostly, by far, plastic bottles.

[MaiDong]

My wife has just got off the phone to Coke customer services, the lady she talked to said that our shop was given the green light to sell on the 1st of this month, deffo dirty tricks going on.

 

6 minutes ago, maoro2013 said:

We hardly sell any of the  bottled I  don't believe that was a factor in the post.

 

We wholesale to many small shops and we retail ourselves. Mostly, by far, plastic bottles.

 

When the girl next door can be bothered to open her shop she sells almost exclusively glass-bottled Coke poured into a bag with ice and a straw, I think it depends on the location of the shop, can I assume that your shop is in a busier area, where people are in and out fast and may not want to cart a sloshing bag of Coke & ice around?

Edited September 10, 2016 by MaiDong

[maoro2013]

1 minute ago, MaiDong said:

My wife has just got off the phone to Coke customer services, the lady she talked to said that our shop was given the green light to sell on the 1st of this month, deffo dirty tricks going on.

 

 

When the girl next door can be bothered to open her shop she sells almost exclusively glass-bottled Coke poured into a bag with ice and a straw, I think it depends on the location of the shop, can I assume that your shop is in a busier area, where people are in and out fast and may not want to cart a sloshing bag of Coke & ice around?

Most our business is wholesale say 60%.

We also cater for many parties.

 

We are on a busy road and shoppers arrive on motorbikes or cars. We are a couple of kilometres out of town.

 

We do sell a little bit of the bottled drinks in the plastic bag nut insignificant compared to the rest of it. We probably buy 15000 baht a week from coke 

[MaiDong]

3 minutes ago, maoro2013 said:

Most our business is wholesale say 60%.

We also cater for many parties.

 

We are on a busy road and shoppers arrive on motorbikes or cars. We are a couple of kilometres out of town.

 

We do sell a little bit of the bottled drinks in the plastic bag nut insignificant compared to the rest of it. We probably buy 15000 baht a week from coke 

 

Exactly, different locations, we're on a quiet soi, a cul-de-sac in fact, so hardly any passing trade.

[sead]

Make your business nicer. Open 1h earlier and close later. That way even his customers have an excuse to buy from you. Greet all yours and he's customers.  NEVER talk bad about your competition to any customers. When macro,  big c etc have big discount on fx shampoo.  have your own .buy and sell for same price. You don't make cash on that specific product but everyone entering your shop will almost guaranteed to be a future customer or buy something more.  first time you buy from coke company make a 4 time bigger order than you need.  when and if they check/compare yours orders they will always care for the customer buying the bigger volume. Have fun and enjoy

 

[MaiDong]

3 minutes ago, sead said:

Make your business nicer. Open 1h earlier and close later. That way even his customers have an excuse to buy from you. Greet all yours and he's customers.  NEVER talk bad about your competition to any customers. When macro,  big c etc have big discount on fx shampoo.  have your own .buy and sell for same price. You don't make cash on that specific product but everyone entering your shop will almost guaranteed to be a future customer or buy something more.  first time you buy from coke company make a 4 time bigger order than you need.  when and if they check/compare yours orders they will always care for the customer buying the bigger volume. Have fun and enjoy

 

 

The problem arose from her not being very nice, a simple 'thank you' was too difficult for her, she would often hand back your change as she was facing the other way and walking away from you! People stand at the front of her shop calling her but she would just be laying on her sofa staring into her phone or making stupid faces at the camera! She would sometimes look at you, look back at her phone, then lift herself off her sofa a few moments later, as if you weren't worthy.

 

This is all on top of her playing cards until the early hours, then not bothering to open until 10 or 11am, often with a face like thunder. She would half open her doors and not bother to turn the lights on so it was as uninviting as it could be.

 

We open at 6am, the fridge is freezing cold, we smile and say thank you(naturally), and customers are slowly coming over.

 

We're only small so despite having a sign out the front, people are yet to notice us, but that's ok! We still have a garden yard full of plants, it looks lovely and is very welcoming, we're both friendly and lots of people like us, most people on this soi can't stand her, she's <deleted> horrible.

 

[henry15]

If you like to earn money, contact EST.

[MaiDong]

36 minutes ago, henry15 said:

If you like to earn money, contact EST.

 

It's funny you should say that! We were considering it, especially as most people don't give a toss what brown fizzy liquid they're drinking when they're thirsty or when they're drinking it with some lovely bbq or fried chicken!

 

I would imagine the profits are bigger too, either that or we could sell it cheaper, and for many in my area, saving a few Baht would be appreciated.

 

What do you pay for a crate of 24 bottles of EST? Coke is B178 per crate, which works out at approx. B7.50 per bottle We would sell a bag of coke with ice for B13 so, forgetting the cost of the bag, ice & straw that's B5.50 profit, I'm interested to know the purchase & sales cost of EST.

 

Our intention is to get the Coke supply to stick two fingers up to next door, they definitely deserve it.

Edited September 10, 2016 by MaiDong

[mikiea]

8 hours ago, charliebadenhop said:

I have no idea about Thailand, but a long time ago in Japan, Coke would not allow but so many stores in an area to carry their product. 

 

Finding out the truth about this should be easy enough. 

it is the way all major products are sold , it increases the sales volume of the product sold in the selected  stores . it is all about competition , if afraid of it you should not entertain being a shop owner .  product placement  is used as a guideline on shelf level , and counter placement spots as well as store placement . making  yourself aware of these small things will help keep you open . 

Edited September 10, 2016 by mikiea

[MaiDong]

3 minutes ago, mikiea said:

it is the way all major products are sold , it increases the sales volume of the product sold in the selected  stores . it is all about competition , if afraid of it you should not entertain being a shop owner .  product placement  is used guidelines on shelf level , and counter placement spots as well as store placement . making  yourself aware of these small things will help keep you open . 

 

I think it's completely irrelevant in this case, there are 7 other shops from the top to the bottom of my Soi and they ALL sell Coke.

 

In the real world, such as Central & The Mall department stores and in developed countries, it's relevant.

Edited September 10, 2016 by MaiDong

[NoshowJones]

9 hours ago, BrainLife said:

Of course 1 per soi is nonsense. Would not worry about it. The fridge they will give you will probably be second/third/fourth hand, but even a new one would eat your electric.

For fridge/cooling drinks and such, buy a horizontal fridge with glass sliders. The cold stays in (cold air is heavier then warm air) and your drinks will always be colder then with a door fridge.

At the bottom is also a large freezer unit for ice or rapid cooling of drinks.

On top there is also a cooled display for smaller items like lipo/m150/juice packs and such

 

Just buy what you need for coke and drinks at the macro or any other large cheap (online) supermarket

Maybe I'm a wee bit off topic here, but in my experience, the biggest majority of 7-11s have nice cool fridges.

But the fridges in Mom and Pop shops are always turned down and the drinks not chilled, presumably to

save on their electric bills. I never frequent these shops because of this.

[BKKdreaming]

if the lady next door  loses her income  who is she going to blame ?

 

YOU ,   and you are working and taking a Thai Job ,   

 

play nice , slow down  or  you   could have trouble , 

 

Yeah I know that you are not going to slow down ,  but Thais need someone to blame !

[cnx355]

20 hours ago, Commogwinto said:

Piss your neighbour off and go ask the Pepsi agent

 

 

Or you can be an agent for EST Cola....And as they are cheaper than Coke you may do good sale with the locals..

[MaiDong]

6 hours ago, BKKdreaming said:

if the lady next door  loses her income  who is she going to blame ?

 

YOU ,   and you are working and taking a Thai Job ,   

 

play nice , slow down  or  you   could have trouble , 

 

Yeah I know that you are not going to slow down ,  but Thais need someone to blame !

 

Read the thread from the beginning please.