Place

According to Statistic Brain, a whopping 1.8 billion Coca Cola bottles are sold every day. (Coca Cola Statistics, 2015). The Coca Cola Company operates on a global scale in nearly every single community and local area. In almost every single shop, there is almost always Coca Cola available to purchase. This is due to the strong Coca Cola System which has over 250 bottling partners globally. (The Coca Cola System, n.d.). The Coca Cola Company does not own or control any of their bottling partners. Although, Coca Cola is a global business, their bottling is carried out through multiple local channels. The company creates and retails beverages to bottling operatives, it is these people that then sell the products to buyers. Bottling operators then have a close working relationship with suppliers such as supermarkets, corner shops, restaurant’s and cafes to create tactics to further sell to buyers.

Retailers:

Defined as – a business that sells products to consumers for their personal and family use. Retailer is the final link in a distribution channel that links manufacturers with consumers. (Dibbs., et al, 2016).

Retailing includes transactions that the customer aims to use the product but only through personal, family or in their household.

A retailer is defined as a business or company that buys products to re-trade them to the public people. Usually in a shop such as a supermarket, but recently online as online shopping is expected to increase by 16.7% in 2017. (Online Retailing: Britain, Europe, US and Canada 2016, 2016). An example of retailing is Coca Cola’s partnership with Coca Cola European Partners who are their bottling partner. They produce and distribute Coca Cola soft drinks as well as supply them and their vending machines and Coca Cola fridges to a wide range of supermarkets, corner shops, bars, pubs, restaurant’s, cafes, and workplaces/schools/universities.

Distribution channels:

Coca Cola uses many forms of distribution. These include:

·         Wholesalers

·         Retail such as supermarkets

·         Restaurants, cafes, bars/pubs

·         Petrol stations eg shell.

·     Vending Machines (on the street/crowded areas where a lot of people are around or see the vending machine)

Coca Cola’s distribution system is very well prearranged and tactical compared to the other companies in the beverage industry. Another way of distributing their products, is wholesale trading. By using wholesale trading, Coca Cola can sell their products in large amounts and maximise their sales. Another benefit by using wholesale trading is the reduced warehouse expenses, this is because they do not have to store their products but rather they can give it away to retailers to sell.

PepsiCo (the direct rival of Coca Cola) can influence Coca Cola to quickly distribute their products and spend much more than PepsiCo to get their products out there and on the shelves. This can be costly as they need to pay for all the fees like transportation and warehouse storage.

Overall, Coca Cola’s retail power has developed over the last few years to the point where they have reached the top of the beverage industry and own most of the market share for soft drinks.