In stores at last!

After 6 months of hard work, we have finally launched and are on sale around Rochester, NY, as well as online. Prices on our website are somewhat steeper than we had wanted, but liquid weighs a lot and isn't cheap to ship.

Selling to stores has been a learning experience. Both in becoming salesmen, and learning the intricacies of the beverage industry. Unfortunately you can't just create a drink and expect a store to purchase it from you. Some stores sell their cooler space to companies, others have exclusive contracts with major brands or distributors (like Coke or Pepsi....boo), and some stores are owned by corporations that require you to sell to the corporation instead of an individual store, as well as pay a shelf space fee for each store the corporation owns.

It'd be nice to have major dollars and a sales force to be nationally distributed quickly, but no such luck here! We're going at it the old fashioned way.

Our first few days of sales, we struck out at 95% of stores for various reasons. We came up with a new game plan that landed us in 10 stores the following day! We've found luck selling to mom and pop deli's, pizza shops, and non corporate gas stations and convenience stores. It's difficult to tell which convenience stores are corporately owned, and which are independent, so we've had to literally go to each store and meet the owners bright and early in the morning.

We're trying to focus on stores near college campuses, hospitals, and high schools because these are the main demographic for energy drinks (we consider ourselves an energy water, and a direct competitor of energy drinks in general).

We experimented with promoting Vital Energy at RIT and UofR this past weekend, but we quickly realized that Labor Day weekend is not a very busy weekend. It seems like everyone decided to BBQ with their families. At any rate, it was another learning experience, and next weekend we'll nail it.

This coming weekend we'll officially begin our marketing and promotional campaign (guerrilla style of course). We'll be at RIT campus on Saturday, and near the Pittsford Village Thursday or Friday, so come find us if you want a free sample!

Here are some more pictures of our first shipment, and Vital Energy in some coolers!

Drink on...
-Mike