Moutai off the shelves in Shanghai as vendors use up stock

Liquor vendors in Shanghai said that Kweichow Moutai, the country’s top brand of baijiu, or “white alcohol,” is mostly out of stock in the metropolis after many shops sold out this year’s quota, media reports said.

Since the National Day holidays ended in early October, Moutai’s signature 53-degree Feitian baijiu has been out of stock, news site thepaper.cn reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified dealer in Shanghai.

“Consumers cannot buy Feitian Moutai even if they are willing to pay more and we have no idea when we can get more,” the dealer was quoted as saying in the report.

An unidentified dealer in Shanghai’s Songjiang district said that “the city is out of stock [of 53-degree Feitian]. You can’t get a bottle even if you spend 2,000 yuan ($302).”

The retail price for a 500-milliliter bottle of 53-degree Feitian baijiu is 1,299 yuan in Moutai exclusive shops.

The dealer said he might not have any new stock until April 2018, according to the report.

However, supplies of Moutai’s other types of baijiu are relatively adequate, the report said.

When shortages of Moutai products took place in August, the company took steps to provide supplies and control retail prices, thepaper.cn report said.

Media reports said that in a bid to guarantee supplies, Kweichow Moutai Group injected 5,600 tons of products into the domestic markets starting August 15. But that only provided temporary relief.

Moutai’s official flagship store on Alibaba’s online shopping platform Tmall got new stock in on Tuesday and the platform plans to put it on presale for the upcoming Double 11 online shopping spree, which falls on November 11, the report said.

Kweichow Moutai’s net profit rose 60.3 percent to about 20 billion yuan during the first nine months of 2017.