Well, 70 stores and sales of $192k is about 2700 bottles per store. 50 bottles a week on average. On the surface That’s not bad imo but perhaps the trajectory is sloping the wrong way. or maybe not good enough for Target. In just 70 stores, it sounds like they did a market test and for some reason Target decided not to expand the distribution to more stores. Perhaps because they are too small to support national sales or perhaps they sold a lot in the first few months but not a lot of repeat buys. But I’m just guessing at motives. These retailers treat small companies very capriciously. I know, over the years I’ve worked with many of them on several different brands and corporations have their own mentality. Sometimes they change buyers or change expectations or add more demands after the fact. It’s not easy for a small startup to get national recognition in a competitive field. Sauce is probably very competitive and dominated by a handful of mega-brands and maybe some brokers that represent an assortment of middling brands that negotiate for space - and pay promotional dollars and slotting fees and price off promotions etc. One small company has to fight hard a d jump a lot of different hurdles.
Target market tests products first. This was a tiny market test for them.
If the product doesn’t perform, they pull it.
If it does, they squeeze the daylights out of the manufacturer to maximize their profits and scale up as they keep the price pressure on.
Multiply by 100 new product tests per day. It’s their business model.
After all, they are potentially delivering a huge audience to the manufacturer.