OMG it is OND!
OND, a popular acronym derived from the names of the months in the fourth quarter of the year (also known as Q4), is both the source of great joy and of high stress in the spirits industry. Great joy because OND represents the largest volume (highest profit) quarter of the calendar year, but also high stress because of the increased logistics involved in making sure there is enough inventory along the distribution chain to guarantee as many sales as possible.
While consumers are thinking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year or other traditional year-end celebrations, distillers and brand owners are bottling their rums, taking orders from importers and distributors, some of them hoping that the OND push will finally make 2018 a profitable year.
Most new distilleries and brands that are just now launching into operation are also finding out that they’ve “missed the window” for 2018 OND sales, since distributors and retailers are busy scheduling their purchases based on their existing portfolios, and that it will be 2019 Q1 or Q2 before they are ready to contemplate adding new brands.
Successfully launching a new rum –as a distiller or private label- requires knowing all these things ahead of time, and being prepared (with enough cash reserves) to survive Q1-Q3 every year, hoping that Q4 will be there to save the day. This, in some ways, is similar to farmers planting sugarcane or other crops: they must either rely entirely on nature to provide the needed water,or must be ready to irrigate the fields themselves until the rain season takes over those duties.
Lastly, OND also means there are only 90 days left for us to fulfill our New Year’s resolutions for 2018, which can be a truly OMG moment for some!
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher