The Christmas shopping season is important for retailers and it’s also a key time for the state agency that supplies alcohol to businesses in the state. Tonya Dusold is the spokesperson for the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division. “Our holiday season starts in October when we start getting those gift packs in that may come with a bottle with glassware and other add-on items. And those are doing well this year,” Dusold says.
While retailers are just starting to see things heat up for the holidays, Dusold says it’s the opposite for them on the supply side. “Traditionally our October, November, December quarter is the highest for sales for us,” Dusold explains. “We do most of our holiday sales to the retailers in the month of October — so we are kind of winding down as the retailers wind up for the holiday season.”
Dusold says early sales in the new fiscal year that started in July are up a little. She says the sale of products for the holidays doesn’t indicate and big jump in anticipation by retailers. “It looks like we are about even with last year as far as holiday sales,” Dusold says. She says that fits in with the trend of seeing overall sales up a little so far, but just marginally. The state fiscal year that ended in June saw record sales of $256-million of alcohol.