Chapter 15: Retailing

  

The Coca-Cola Company is an independent retailer. This means that the "retailers are owned by a single person or partnership and not operated as part of a larger retail institution." The company has relationships with three types of bottlers: "independently owned bottlers where the company has no ownership interest; bottlers where the company has invested but has non-controlling ownership interest; and bottlers where the company has invested and has a controlling interest."

                         

Most of Coca-Cola's products are produced and distributed by bottling companies that aren't owned by the Coca-Cola Company. There are stores that don't only sell the Coca-Cola products but also merchandise, apparel, and accessories. The Coca-Cola Store in Atlanta, Georgia, lets you have a behind the scenes view of the bottling process, meet the Coca-Cola panda, and sample over 60 products from around the world. There's also a store in China (http://www.coca-colastore.com/), New York (http://www.coca-cola.com/en/index.html), and many other states and countries. 

  

Coca-Cola products are basically sold in department stores, supermarkets, drugstores, convenience stores, supercenters, restaurants, and automatic vending. They're either packaged in cans or bottles in a box or in a fridge or in the food section in the store in liter bottles, regular sized bottles, regular cans, or even the small cans.