April Inventory Idiocy

I'm a Scotch guy, and I know a fair amount about it. Although they have a statewide monopoly on selling it, the PLCB doesn't...and I'm going to pick on them for that.  How incompetent/stupid/'we don't care' are they this month? Let's take a look.

I'll start off with Glenmorangie single malt Scotch whisky. The PLCB lists 25 bottlings of Glenmo on their website between on-line, in-store, SLO, and of course, "out of stock." So how many do you think you could actually get?

Well, there are nine out of stock, some of which we will never ever see again; inventory padding, really, just like the Jack Daniel's examples I pointed out here. So that leaves sixteen...right? Not exactly. The PLCB likes to double count the exact same item that they have on the shelf...and what they can supposedly only get by SLO.

Here are two examples. First, the Quinta Ruban:

It would seem that cutting and pasting the picture is beyond the ability of the people who do the inventory, and why is the price different? And before you even ask; no, there's only one expression of Quinta Ruban.
 
Next! The Nectar D'Or [a favorite of Lew's ...but not bought from the PLCB!]:

They still can't figure out how to post the exact same picture in two different places, but at least the price is the same this time!

So now we are down to fourteen. Whoops! One is supposedly "Coming Soon," so we're down to thirteen. Now how many do you think you can actually get?

Well, two are listed as "On-Line Exclusive," which may or may not mean you can find one or two in a store. (The PLCB has made that mistake more than a few times.) Are they really there? Looking at the inventory listed in the current Product Catalog, they aren't listed at all, but other out of stock online exclusives are — like the Glenmorangie Signet which the Product Catalog says is available,  but SLO and the FWAGS website says it isn't. So which is it?

Then there is the 18 year old New World which FWAGS says is out of stock but the Catalog says is available. Do these people have any idea what they're doing?

We really don't know HOW many of these are actually available. Who can say, since the inventory, like the rest of the PLCB, is entirely screwed up.

Why do we continue to put up with this incompetently-run "business" which can only make a "profit" with a police-enforced monopoly and by gouging the people they are supposed to serve with artificially high costs and variable pricing?

End the insanity, Tell your Representative to support HB 1075 and get the state out of this mess and back to what is considered normal by the vast majority of the states.

Minimums

If you like wine or whiskey that's not the usual, like I do, and you live in Pennsylvania, like I do, you'll soon find out that the State Store System doesn't want to make life easy for you. Not only are the prices gouging and the service almost non-existent, a lot of times the bottle you want isn't even on the shelf. You have to order it, through a service that the PLCB calls, with a straight face, "SLO." That stands for "Special Liquor Order," and I think the person who thought it up must have been subversive. I salute them; it's genius.

Having to order something's not that bad, though; even at private stores they don't carry everything. But where they really put the screws to you is with the minimum orders. Six is the most common, sometimes it's two (I've seen them list a "minimum order quantity of 1"), but you'll see twelve listed as well; I'm looking at a twelve minimum right now, Oban Little Bay single malt.

One order. Please to make minimum.

What kind of crap is that? Is this to keep our singleton consumer hands off so the restaurants can corner the market? Are they just being stupid? Again? Why do they put these ridiculous minimums in place?

What follows is a paraphrase of three conversations I've had on the topic with people who either work for the PLCB, work for their suppliers, or politically support it.

Apologists: No, no, you don't understand. It's not us! We don't put those minimums in place, it's the wholesaler!

Me: But the PLCB is the wholesaler. The only one.

No, no, the suppliers. We call them wholesalers sometimes. 

That's confusing, but that whole situation is confusing. So you're saying that the suppliers tell you that you have to sell these in lots of at least two, or six or twelve?

Yes, it's their fault. 

You want this whiskey? You must buy all this whiskeys!

Is this another one of the great deals you got with your fantastic buying power? That you have to do in your own stores what the suppliers tell you? Just kidding... But if that's true, then why don't I have to buy a minimum like that when I buy at a private store, in any other state or country? They don't force me to buy at least two of something.

Well, it's because of the stores out in Sullivan County, and Mifflin County, and [names eighteen other counties with only one or two stores]. If we have to ship to them only one bottle for a customer order, that's expensive and inconvenient, so we have the minimums.

That kind of makes sense if you're shipping one bottle to Sullivan County's one store, but don't you say that rural selection will go down if sales are privatized? What kind of selection do you have if you have to buy twelve of a bottle that costs $85?

You could get eleven friends to buy one. 

But then I'd be like that guy in Malvern the BLCE busted for reselling wine, wouldn't I?

We didn't tell you to do that. 

Yes, you did!

No, we didn't.

Many bottles, so many! You must buy them all. Or buy NONE!

Whatever. In any case, even if it does make sense for the far-flung stores, it doesn't make sense in the stores in Philly, and Pittsburgh, and the major suburbs where the store density is so much greater, does it? You're doing supply runs more often, to more stores, it would be easy to include small orders.

We can't. Those are the rules, because it has to be the same for everyone. 

Wait...you told me it was because the suppliers said you had to do it.

We didn't say that.

Yes, you did, not two minutes ago.

No, you're confused.


Here's my promise for you, for 2016. I'm going to ask the PLCB these questions, the hard questions, the ones that make no sense, in writing, and keep asking them until I get solid, acceptable answers that make sense, in writing. We'll see how that goes.

PLCB: We can't do our job! (so you have to suffer for it)

You may have read that the PLCB stopped all Special Liquor Orders (SLO—how appropriate) because of a backlog, apparently caused by the departure—OVER 6 MONTHS AGO—of  two data entry clerks. The huge amount of people qualified to be data entry clerks that are currently in the Civil Service system and in the general populace only emphasizes the PLCB's lack of decision making ability.

Pretty much the excuse for this stoppage was that PA residents are offered so many items in the SLO process that the staff can't keep up with the entering and deleting of them all in the product catalog. But are we really offered that much? Of the 40,000 items listed as available, the PLCB admits that there are "tens of thousands of outdated or nonexistent special liquor order items that must be deleted from the state catalog each year." If there is only one catalog that lists everything, yet some unspecified but large percentage of that catalog (tens of thousands!) are nonexistent or outdated on a rotating basis...then you really don't have 40,000 items available, you have 40,000 items listed. Note that this is exactly the same thing Joe "Da CEO" Conti used to accuse the large over-the-border superstores (like Total, Joe Canal's, and Roger Wilco) of doing; saying they had 12,000 items, but then talking you into something else once you actually got there. Guess he was just projecting his behavior on them.

Would Lowe's, Target, Sears, etc. be in business if they let the public order and pay for 25% (or maybe more) of the items listed on their websites, only to tell them days or weeks later that the item isn't available? I mean that does happen...but with a damn sight less frequency then with the state stores.

Imagine telling your boss (and we are the boss of this government-run retail monopoly, even if they won't do anything we want) that you can't do your job, so you are going to stop for a few weeks to catch up. How do you think that will go over?

Not surprisingly, once this business incompetence was reported the PLCB suddenly was able to start taking SLO orders the very next day a week ahead of schedule. Not unlike the situation in "The 90 days to do something story"  I posted back in November. The PLCB doesn't "fix" anything unless they are found out doing something stupid, incompetent or anti-consumer.

PLCB says it is planning to install a system that allows for greater automation of application processing, which could help to alleviate future delays. Notice that they don't say it will fix the problem but just band-aid it enough so the citizens won't see it fail like it just did. News flash: if we privatize, you won't see it fail either. Socialist monopoly retail can not react to business and consumer needs anywhere near the way private industry can. Why continue to have the State Store System try to act like a badly-run business when real business can do so much better, and does, every day?

Call, email or write your Representatives and Senators and tell them to make a deal to get rid of this albatross; trade it for a shale tax or just sell it outright to close the deficit.  We deserve better and we'll never get it with the PLCB.

Privatization IS Modernization.

More Great News For Pennsylvania from the PLCB!!

A Pennsylvania licensee (a restaurant owner) forwarded this communication from the PLCB to me, with the attached note: "Please hurry with your project to eliminate the LCB!!!" (Yes, the emphasis in the following was added.)

Dear Licensee Partner:

As you are probably aware, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has been experiencing continued difficulties with its online Special Liquor Order system, and as a result, your vendor sales representatives have been unable to successfully submit your SLO orders. We apologize for the inconvenience. With the support of the Board, we have decided to suspend SLO submissions via the Internet vendor portal for two months while we switch to a new, upgraded database platform.

Beginning on Monday, June 30, orders that vendors had been submitting on your behalf online will now be sent to the PLCB's Central Office via fax or e-mail. We have additional resources in place to enter all orders we receive and there should be no delay in filling those orders.

Please note that you still have the option of placing an SLO order through any of our 621 Wine & Spirits stores. However, please do not ask your vendor sales rep to place an order for you and place the order yourself through one of our stores, as this will result in a duplicate order. We value the partnership of licensees and vendors in distributing wine and spirits in Pennsylvania, and we are taking significant steps to ensure you still receive prompt service.

I appreciate your cooperation during this improvement in the SLO ordering process. Upgrading our SLO order system is of utmost importance, and on behalf of the Board, I pledge our agency's full commitment as we move forward together.

Thank you for your patience. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Joe Conti
Chief Executive Officer

Does anyone else just find it hilarious that the PLCB's special order system is named "SLOW"? Oh, sorry, my mistake: SLO. Did he really say two months? "I appreciate your cooperation..." Like they had a choice! And what does this mean: "With the support of the Board..."? If Conti has to run his decisions past the Board...and its Chairman...exactly what is his position for again? Signing bad news?

If you like good booze, something other than the biggest sellers, this means getting the good stuff will be more of an annoyance for your favorite bar or restaurant. Licensees are sounding off about this, and they're not happy. If it were legal in PA, I could buy booze over the Internet from foreign countries today, been able to for years...but the PLCB is still trying to cobble together something that works.

You know...I worked for the federal government for four years. I worked pretty hard, I enjoyed my work, and I really came to hate hearing the phrase "close enough for government work." I find that as a taxpayer, it pisses me off even more when it's true, and when it's said about a government agency that shouldn't even exist.