What’s the magic number?

As a grocer, there are list of products/brands that you must have in your store for all the categories that you carry.

But many independent grocers still struggle to get some of the national brands into their stores at a competitive cost.

Small independent grocers aren’t usually able to source products directly from manufacturers because of a lack of volume. But grocers can usually stay relatively competitive if they can get truckload pricing from manufacturers, but if you don’t have enough stores then the inventory risk becomes a headache.

There are distributors and consolidators in the market that offers many brands in one shipment for independents.

But often they don’t have a full assortment of the brands and their poor customer service makes it less attractive to do business with them.

For some of the independents with approximately more than 10 stores or so, and that have the warehouse space and volume, they're able to source the established brands directly from manufacturers.

My question is: how many stores will it take for independents to be able to source key brands directly into their stores?

The answers will vary among grocers; some might say 5, 10 or even 20.

So, what is that magic number?