Wal-Mart Selling Budweiser & Coors Beer Almost At Cost To Become America’s Largest Beer Seller

The markup on a 36-pack of Coors Light cans at a Los-Angeles-area store was 0.6 percent, compared with 16.2 percent for a package of Flaming Hot Cheetos, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Companies typically don’t release information about markups so the March data provide a rare glimpse of Wal-Mart’s alcohol pricing strategy

Wal-Mart’s push into beer is part of a plan to double alcohol sales by 2016 and seize a larger slice of a U.S. beer market worth about $45 billion. While founder Sam Walton frowned on drinking to excess, selling cheap suds is a way to lure shoppers who typically buy other products at the same time. Repeat visits are crucial for the world’s largest retailer, which last month cut its profit forecast and reported second-quarter profit and sales that missed analysts’ estimates.
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