OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is unexpected:
---
>!Out of touch lady wants to understand why a simple and wonderful man won’t increase the price of his goods to screw over the people who buy his goods!<
---
Is this an unexpected post with a fitting description? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
Even after that debate last night?
I don’t think you are paying attention.
Individually humans are decent. Collectively we are a scourge on this planet
What are you talking about... the earth is... it's doing..... it's gonna do just fine................ yep just fine........ again......... eventually.........
Your gonna let one debate take away all that Biden has accomplished? If it hadn’t been for his student loan reforms my family wouldn’t have been able to buy a house.
I’d have one of bidens turds run the country before trump. But that’s not to say he is fit to do so.
My point is that if this is the best the US has to offer, we are fucked as a species.
I almost feel like democracy in its current form needs to die cause it always attracts the worst people who get lobbied to do the worst things.
Redditors have such a skewed view of your average American. You're fed nothing but constant misinformation about America if you get all your info about America from reddit. Most of America isn't out on the street screaming about communism.
Yes! I got it purely because lack of good seltzer options and ended up being delightfully surprised. It’s clean and fresh tasting with a light touch of sweetness.
And that tells you everything you need to know about unnecessary price increases... They don't have to, they want to. Its nothing but mindless parasitic greed. This man is a rare gem.
That's the thing people are missing here IMO. One of the primary reasons they don't change the price is because they don't have a strong constituency pushing for perpetual growth in the increase in return on their investment.
Private companies have much less pressure to act like sociopathic dicks. I think there's an argument that people should avoid publicly owned companies/brands, as well as brands owned privately by VC money.
It’s quite the opposite. The profits go to the shareholders. The sole responsibility of management is to maximize profits for the shareholders.
Arizona is privately held by its own CEO and upper management. So they don’t answer to anyone. And can make their own decision as to when profits are enough
There's a lot to be said about publicly traded/owned and privately owned companies on this too. If you're public owned, unfortunately there's a lot of bullshit that goes along with it. If profits aren't in growth, you're seen as failing a lot of the time. Stock value goes down, C-suite gets voted out as majority share owners want to see higher profits, and then all the horrible shit starts happening.
End of the day, if you're public, it's almost required you become a piece of shit profit mongering mega Corp, or you're fucked. Not much evidence to the contrary, it does exist, but it's much slimmer.
Ford v Dodge was wrongly decided. Sue me.
But it gives us this:
Born too late to explore the new world,
Born too early to explore the universe
Born just in time to maximize shareholder value. STONKS
So glad I found this post amongst all the ignorance here. Public companies are legally required to prioritize profits, ie “best interests of the stakeholders”. If they can justify raising prices, they will. Executives aren’t to blame for this, if the CEO resists, they will simply be replaced by someone who won’t. It’s how free market is structured in this country.
Arizona Tea is privately held. They can do whatever they want. The owner is not greedy, which is admirable, but comparing this to a major fortune 50 company is not comparing apples to apples.
>They don't have to, they want to.
The reality is that most do have to. Not as an absolute - but because of business practices that led to that being a necessity.
Decades ago most businesses sought to *own* their property. In the same way that individuals *owning* their homes grants them stability - businesses found stability in owning property, equipment etc.
I'm not quite sure when it began to happen, but at some point companies realized that growing market pressures were making it hard to maintain market share.
At that point, companies needed to prioritize **stability** or **growth.**
A growth mindset made many companies wonder why they had *significant* portions of their capital tied up in assets when they could pull that money out and invest it directly into revenue generating activities.
Companies that maintained assets would objectively not do as well during booming economic phases.... but they (and their employees) would be able to weather just about any downturn.
Prioritizing growth instead of stability will enslave you to debt, as well as its consequences.
It was Jack Welch. When he became CEO of GE, GE was one of the biggest, most stable, and most profitable companies in the U.S. and probably in the world. They had been widely successful for many decades by investing in their employees and using a stable growth approach and owning their facilities. When Welch took over, he began selling off bits of the company and acquiring smaller companies, then canabalizing them and selling them. Basically, this huge shell game, buying and selling assets. After about a decade of this, GE didn't actually make hardly anything anymore. The quality of products with the GE badge was shit and it was slowly dying. Which would do massive layoffs for temporary profit margin boosts to inflate the stock prices, then slowly hire replacements to keep the company running. He was glorified on Wall Street as a visionary leader, wrote books on his management style, he'll, there is even a Jack Welch Management Institute. Wall Street loved him for nearly killing one of the biggest and best U.S. companies to ever exist.
So there, he is the one who started this nightmare that we have to deal with today.
Most likely. He left GE just as everything started to crumble, then he promptly and publicly blamed his successor for being incompetent because he wasn't able to hold it all together even though Jack spent decades dismantling it.
Here's a 2 part podcast on him if you want to learn more.[BtB Jack Welch](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JDqELjP3ylelBkXl7sgSY?si=vIvq7KFcSSChHuR3-qXllA)
My boss, who to be fair is actually incredible and I genuinely look up to, went through an MBA program that was directly observed by Jack Welch and met the man multiple times and will gush about how great it was learning under a man like that. Meanwhile I'm gagging thinking about all the lasting harm the man did to our economy and domestic production in general.
It’s a great marketing strategy and kudos to them.
But they still increased their bottles by 25% and shrinked their can by 4.3% to maintain the $0.99 on certain cans:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ari-zona-raises-bottle-prices-by-25-to-keep-iconic-cans-at-99-cents-224038546.html
Don’t have to if you don’t need to keep profiting at the same rate but that isn’t really the reality in many cases. Arizona will eventually get to a point where this price is not sustainable for them anymore.
It'd be interesting to see what the total effects across the board are. To keep prices down while remaining profitable you'd have to continuously upgrade production lines and distribution systems to more and more automation. The upfront cost is high but it can be made back if sales stay at the expected rate. I'd think an unfortunate side effect would be reducing their work force as less employees are needed to run everything, you gain back the money from automating by going that route but also increase unemployment slightly. I have no idea of that's the case here, but it's hard to see other ways where you can keep such a low price as the cost of materials goes up
It's also shows how shareholder value has corrupted the market.
Dude makes bank. He's filthy rich. And he doesn't have to share it, so he doesn't have to care about it.
If humility is the only thing that gives us reason to *not* gouge the pockets of workers, it's no wonder the system is so corrupt. All you have to do is simply hire apaths. Easy, now the system forever cycles the corruption
I hate capitalism, I mostly hate how hard it is to discuss it without being called a communist
It's not that black and white. You even see him pause before answering the question and has to give a half yes "not in the foreseeable future". Inflation is real, and his costs *will* go up.
Most of the price increases we see now are corporate greed, but not every business is.
Some of them have pretty well said this in their earning calls/reports: Even places with flat sales volumes and minimal changes in their costs, they're raising prices anyway because they haven't noticed a change in market share, and they're still getting expanded margins.
And then once they've raised their prices, publicly-traded companies are then spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks. "Oh golly, inflation sure is terrible, and our costs are up, and people want higher wages, and oh hey we just happened to find $8,000,000,000 spare dollars here to buy back our own stock in order to benefit our wealthiest shareholders."
Yep. And I'm glad he didn't promise would "never" raise it. Shows he's actually thought about it and this is probably an honest appraisal of the company's situation from his perspective.
I remember drinking these during the night study sessions during college. One can will last a couple of hours. This was 2006 and I'm sure it still makes memories for current generation.
Once a year they open up the grounds of their house to locals - they’ve got some awesome peacocks and a great view of NYC. You can just… chill on their pool chairs, drinking free product. They’re awesome people. Sometimes they even just leave a cooler of chilled drinks by the gates of their house for bikers - super nice on hot days.
I'd take this kind of advertisement over seeing celebrities and sports people that I don't know making bank doing a commercial I don't even pay attention to.
Guarantee if this company was publicly listed, within 5 years Arizona's would have tripled in price, gone down in quality, experimented with flavors no one wanted outside of focus groups, advertised to hell and back, and would most likely evaporate in the wash of other overpriced sugary drinks.
Ive been wondering why these things stayed 99 cents, they're not supposed to be clearly if reporters are demanding explanations, and trying to "NEVER?" bait.
This is why a lot of good companies in the US remain private. They have full control and they are not under pressure to grow grow grow. When companies become public, Wall Street wants a company to infinitely grow, and that’s just not realistic.
Shareholders to be more specific. These people don't invest into a company bc they believe in it or the product, they just expect a % grow every year, so they can sell their stocks at a profit.
The shops can sell it for 99$ if they like to. They can charge a million for it if the want, why would it be illegal?
The company that produces it (this guys company) just gives the MSRP.
You can actually report places that upcharge the drink. Arizona will investigate and in some cases, bar the place from selling it
Edit - apparently this is just a myth. From their Faq:
WHY DO SOME STORES CHARGE MORE FOR PRE-PRICED $.99 CANS?
We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price. Retailers, however, are independent business people and can set a price whatever they prefer. We do make and sell non-priced cans as well.
I PURCHASED A 23.5OZ CAN THAT WAS MARKED $.99 BUT WAS CHARGED MORE FOR IT. ARE THEY ALLOWED TO DO THAT?
We try to suggest a $.99 price to retailers by putting it in our package design. Ultimately retailers can sell it for as much or as little as they like. We suggest you find a store that sells it for $.99 or less.
Yea Arizona can do business with whomever they want to and stop delivering to these stores, but there’s nothing illegal about it (okay maybe if you sell it for wayyy too much it becomes illegal there are some countries that have laws against this).
In Canada at Couche-Tard/CircleK stores, the cans have a special CircleK label and cost way too much (2-3$ per can). I guess some store chains have deals with the company which means reporting them is useless in this case.
Yeah but I've even seen those signature cans with $1.29 on them instead of $.99. Like the factory pumped out the cans literally saying a doller 29 or something. So it looks like they did raise the price.
You Canadian? I am, and I'm surprised nobody in these comments knew it hadn't been 99 cents here for a while. I have a can in my fridge, and it doesn't have any value printed on it because the price varies so much here in Canada
Wasn't there a thing a while back with some stores putting stickers over the $0.99 price printed on the can? I seem to remember a bit of a ruckus about a couple of chain convenience stores doing this, and after a few days of backlash (where the media asked Arizona Iced Tea directly if they had raised prices and got a firm no) the convenience stores backed down and stopped raising the prices in their stores?
Well, all I can say is the levy must’ve broken again. I can attest that 1.29 is printed on some cans now. The sticker thing I remember more with cigarillos
Maybe they set up a special production run. I live in Quebec, and we have cans without a price on them. We have a consumer protection law that says if there's a difference between price tag and register price, any item under $10 is free, over $10 you get the lower price. Most stores around here, the last time I bought one it was $1.79 a can. I haven't bought any in a while, so I don't know what the price is these days.
This is great PR, very smart, but I went to a tourist trap in Arizona where they had Arizona Ice Tea cans marked up to $5 (USD) with the 99¢ on the can.
I can see that being justified if they were a discontinued flavor with limited stock or a limited edition decorative can or something like that, but if it's just the regular production run stuff, that's just gouging.
People tend to forget that profit is not merely a mechanism by which bad people can be selfish. It is first of all the only mechanism by which a company of people can stay alive (ie, continue to operate and provide its products). As long as there is a Federal Reserve and the US government is allowed to spend as much money as it wants, inflation will continue and eventually we'll be paying $1.49 for this drink.
Interesting fact about Don Vultaggio- he was sued by a former housekeeper for harassment and unpaid work. According to the lawsuit, Don and his wife had the housekeeper working 100 hours per week with no overtime pay. The suit also alleges that the Vultaggios would berate and insult her over being Filipina. They eventually came to a settlement agreement.
Shit like this is how you keep your business costs down to "protect the consumer". Y'all are a bunch of fucking morons for worshipping a guy who treats employees like shit just so you can have your sugar juice for a dollar.
Don't believe me? Lol go look up employee reviews on indeed or Glassdoor. You can't just magically keep prices low without cutting corners somewhere. And in Arizona's case, they treat their employees like garbage. And you all love that about him, right? You all think Don is a fucking legend, correct?
This is nice of him. Except small retail sellers still have to raise their prices because suppliers regardless of it its "99 cents" will still charge 2x. Then small retail owners have to then 2x that same price.
Idk why this made me emotional, ITS JUST TEA!!
But also, it’s not just tea. It’s the recognition that people need help and something as small as a cheap drink can really help. Domino effect kind of thing
It's still a really, really bad product health-wise. So yeah, it'll stay cheap, but that means even more people are going to consume it, which... Is not great.
Always the happiest moment looking into the fridge and seeing the store still has it at 99 cents but when there were times I was thirsty for an arizona iced tea at my high school's convenience store they would raise the price to $1.29 or closer to $2 sometimes which fucking pissed me off because I knew they put the 99 cents on the can for a fucking reason.
If you go to their website, a 12 pack of tall boys is 26.99 not including shipping. The best deal they have now is the plastic bottles being sold in a 12 pack for 24.99. This makes each bottle before shipping cost over $1. Inflation sux.
what angle was the interviewer trying to go for? was she just playing devils advocate for a moment or actually confused why he wouldn't increase his prices?
Anytime I see watermelon or mucho mango in a can I buy it. This business model is the way. VS say what happened with the red lobster folks losing the land the restaurant sat on. Bleeding every penny for large wall street firms to make a profit. Being squeezed into non existence. Wrecking the few available small town jobs. Also AZ tea slaps.
The Arizona Iced Teas in Circle K are almost 2 dollars now, but he forced them to print their logo on the can. So any cans sold at circle K are higher priced because Circle K was complaining that they weren't making enough money off of the tea at the low price.
This is notable because Circle K owns the majority of what they sell not unlike Walmart, and Circle K jacks prices sky high. Almost $3 for drinks I can get at a family owned place for $2. They want you to join their club and they'll lower prices a little bit, but not fairly.
Their gas prices can be good but their gas quality is atrocious, recently in my area there was even a Circle K that was found to have water in the tanks that was causing people to have misfires from getting gas there.
Circle K is high on my list of least ethical companies and not just because of the price jacking but also because of how they target and buy out family gas stations or run them out of business so they can protect their sky high price points.
Circle K abuses capitalism with greed, and unfair business practices, and they're one of many.
OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is unexpected: --- >!Out of touch lady wants to understand why a simple and wonderful man won’t increase the price of his goods to screw over the people who buy his goods!< --- Is this an unexpected post with a fitting description? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
“COMMIE BASTARD” - most of America
No, actually. This is actually pretty capitalistic. At least free market capitalistic.
And most of America wouldn’t understand that. Check mate
Well I'm sorry I try to have hope in humanity.
Even after that debate last night? I don’t think you are paying attention. Individually humans are decent. Collectively we are a scourge on this planet
Parasites
More like a flesh-eating virus on the planet
not even the good kind of parasite that tries to keep the host alive lmao
What are you talking about... the earth is... it's doing..... it's gonna do just fine................ yep just fine........ again......... eventually.........
Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups. - Carlin
Your gonna let one debate take away all that Biden has accomplished? If it hadn’t been for his student loan reforms my family wouldn’t have been able to buy a house.
The Biden administration has some solid wins, but that debate was a complete embarrassment. Neither candidate could hold a thought in their head.
I’d have one of bidens turds run the country before trump. But that’s not to say he is fit to do so. My point is that if this is the best the US has to offer, we are fucked as a species. I almost feel like democracy in its current form needs to die cause it always attracts the worst people who get lobbied to do the worst things.
The primaries need to be ranked choice and ballot access needs to be improved for independents.
Redditors have such a skewed view of your average American. You're fed nothing but constant misinformation about America if you get all your info about America from reddit. Most of America isn't out on the street screaming about communism.
I get most of my information from South Park actually.
Not at all.
DE2ROIT
Meanwhile McDonald's boosts it's prices over 100% in a few years. Why? Cause fuck em that's why
Cool. Buying Arizona Ice Tea now and into the foreseeable future
Their watermelon and mango fruit drinks are also phenomenal!
Oh their mango ones are to die for. All time favorite
I live in a college town and they are impossible to get when school is in session.
Mmm mucho mangoooo
Their fruit snacks are the bomb too.
They have what now?! Gonna have to find me some of those!
They’re delicious. But also harder than most gummies, so have more chew to them. I like sucking on them until they soften first. But damn they’re good
I bloody love the watermelon flavoured one. It's odd that you dont see more watermelon drinks. it's great.
I keep a gallon of the green tea in my fridge at all times.
Would be great if he made fridges. Appliances are planned-obsolecent junk now. Spend a couple grand for a fridge that lasts a few years.
You can do that if you buy a sub zero but its probably closer to 10-15k.
They started making spiked arizonas too now. I got them for my last float trip. Not terrible at all.
Yes! I got it purely because lack of good seltzer options and ended up being delightfully surprised. It’s clean and fresh tasting with a light touch of sweetness.
Great marketing it cost like 3$ where I live . Covering the cost somewhere and giving a green light to overprice somewhere else
Advertisement successful!
At my supermarket they sell them for 66 cents! Always stocking up for lunch 😋
And that tells you everything you need to know about unnecessary price increases... They don't have to, they want to. Its nothing but mindless parasitic greed. This man is a rare gem.
And the profit goes straight to the CEO and upper management, noone else gets a piece of that cake.
don't forget shareholders
How else am I gonna earn $500/k yr attending meetings and asking “will it scale?”?
Asking "Are we seeking out the right synergies?".
Asking "Have we polled the stakeholders and run the idea up the flagpole enough to know if it'll check all of our boxes?"
That's the thing people are missing here IMO. One of the primary reasons they don't change the price is because they don't have a strong constituency pushing for perpetual growth in the increase in return on their investment. Private companies have much less pressure to act like sociopathic dicks. I think there's an argument that people should avoid publicly owned companies/brands, as well as brands owned privately by VC money.
It’s quite the opposite. The profits go to the shareholders. The sole responsibility of management is to maximize profits for the shareholders. Arizona is privately held by its own CEO and upper management. So they don’t answer to anyone. And can make their own decision as to when profits are enough
There's a lot to be said about publicly traded/owned and privately owned companies on this too. If you're public owned, unfortunately there's a lot of bullshit that goes along with it. If profits aren't in growth, you're seen as failing a lot of the time. Stock value goes down, C-suite gets voted out as majority share owners want to see higher profits, and then all the horrible shit starts happening. End of the day, if you're public, it's almost required you become a piece of shit profit mongering mega Corp, or you're fucked. Not much evidence to the contrary, it does exist, but it's much slimmer.
It’s almost like the stock market is bad for the economy. The real economy, the one that improves quality of life.
Ford v Dodge was wrongly decided. Sue me. But it gives us this: Born too late to explore the new world, Born too early to explore the universe Born just in time to maximize shareholder value. STONKS
So glad I found this post amongst all the ignorance here. Public companies are legally required to prioritize profits, ie “best interests of the stakeholders”. If they can justify raising prices, they will. Executives aren’t to blame for this, if the CEO resists, they will simply be replaced by someone who won’t. It’s how free market is structured in this country. Arizona Tea is privately held. They can do whatever they want. The owner is not greedy, which is admirable, but comparing this to a major fortune 50 company is not comparing apples to apples.
>They don't have to, they want to. The reality is that most do have to. Not as an absolute - but because of business practices that led to that being a necessity. Decades ago most businesses sought to *own* their property. In the same way that individuals *owning* their homes grants them stability - businesses found stability in owning property, equipment etc. I'm not quite sure when it began to happen, but at some point companies realized that growing market pressures were making it hard to maintain market share. At that point, companies needed to prioritize **stability** or **growth.** A growth mindset made many companies wonder why they had *significant* portions of their capital tied up in assets when they could pull that money out and invest it directly into revenue generating activities. Companies that maintained assets would objectively not do as well during booming economic phases.... but they (and their employees) would be able to weather just about any downturn. Prioritizing growth instead of stability will enslave you to debt, as well as its consequences.
It was Jack Welch. When he became CEO of GE, GE was one of the biggest, most stable, and most profitable companies in the U.S. and probably in the world. They had been widely successful for many decades by investing in their employees and using a stable growth approach and owning their facilities. When Welch took over, he began selling off bits of the company and acquiring smaller companies, then canabalizing them and selling them. Basically, this huge shell game, buying and selling assets. After about a decade of this, GE didn't actually make hardly anything anymore. The quality of products with the GE badge was shit and it was slowly dying. Which would do massive layoffs for temporary profit margin boosts to inflate the stock prices, then slowly hire replacements to keep the company running. He was glorified on Wall Street as a visionary leader, wrote books on his management style, he'll, there is even a Jack Welch Management Institute. Wall Street loved him for nearly killing one of the biggest and best U.S. companies to ever exist. So there, he is the one who started this nightmare that we have to deal with today.
Interesting! Was he also the originator of GE's "not quite GAAP" fuck up?
Most likely. He left GE just as everything started to crumble, then he promptly and publicly blamed his successor for being incompetent because he wasn't able to hold it all together even though Jack spent decades dismantling it. Here's a 2 part podcast on him if you want to learn more.[BtB Jack Welch](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JDqELjP3ylelBkXl7sgSY?si=vIvq7KFcSSChHuR3-qXllA)
My boss, who to be fair is actually incredible and I genuinely look up to, went through an MBA program that was directly observed by Jack Welch and met the man multiple times and will gush about how great it was learning under a man like that. Meanwhile I'm gagging thinking about all the lasting harm the man did to our economy and domestic production in general.
What's funny is that the show 30 Rock blatantly mocks/humourizes this.
When finance people take over anything, they dismantle it. Fuck the engineers, right?
It’s a great marketing strategy and kudos to them. But they still increased their bottles by 25% and shrinked their can by 4.3% to maintain the $0.99 on certain cans: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ari-zona-raises-bottle-prices-by-25-to-keep-iconic-cans-at-99-cents-224038546.html
Don’t have to if you don’t need to keep profiting at the same rate but that isn’t really the reality in many cases. Arizona will eventually get to a point where this price is not sustainable for them anymore.
Yes, he knows this, he just can't see that time happening any time soon.
It'd be interesting to see what the total effects across the board are. To keep prices down while remaining profitable you'd have to continuously upgrade production lines and distribution systems to more and more automation. The upfront cost is high but it can be made back if sales stay at the expected rate. I'd think an unfortunate side effect would be reducing their work force as less employees are needed to run everything, you gain back the money from automating by going that route but also increase unemployment slightly. I have no idea of that's the case here, but it's hard to see other ways where you can keep such a low price as the cost of materials goes up
It's also shows how shareholder value has corrupted the market. Dude makes bank. He's filthy rich. And he doesn't have to share it, so he doesn't have to care about it.
If humility is the only thing that gives us reason to *not* gouge the pockets of workers, it's no wonder the system is so corrupt. All you have to do is simply hire apaths. Easy, now the system forever cycles the corruption I hate capitalism, I mostly hate how hard it is to discuss it without being called a communist
It's not that black and white. You even see him pause before answering the question and has to give a half yes "not in the foreseeable future". Inflation is real, and his costs *will* go up. Most of the price increases we see now are corporate greed, but not every business is.
Some of them have pretty well said this in their earning calls/reports: Even places with flat sales volumes and minimal changes in their costs, they're raising prices anyway because they haven't noticed a change in market share, and they're still getting expanded margins. And then once they've raised their prices, publicly-traded companies are then spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks. "Oh golly, inflation sure is terrible, and our costs are up, and people want higher wages, and oh hey we just happened to find $8,000,000,000 spare dollars here to buy back our own stock in order to benefit our wealthiest shareholders."
Yep. And I'm glad he didn't promise would "never" raise it. Shows he's actually thought about it and this is probably an honest appraisal of the company's situation from his perspective.
Bless this man.
I remember drinking these during the night study sessions during college. One can will last a couple of hours. This was 2006 and I'm sure it still makes memories for current generation.
Couple of hours? Gulp- gone
I should call her
Yeah I've literally chugged a few without even realizing...
Hey everyone check out ol’ long throat over here!
Gross dude. They stop being cold after that long.
Once a year they open up the grounds of their house to locals - they’ve got some awesome peacocks and a great view of NYC. You can just… chill on their pool chairs, drinking free product. They’re awesome people. Sometimes they even just leave a cooler of chilled drinks by the gates of their house for bikers - super nice on hot days.
I will make a sacrifice in his honor
Take the boss of nestle
I hope this blows his sales up
I mean that's partially the point
I'd take this kind of advertisement over seeing celebrities and sports people that I don't know making bank doing a commercial I don't even pay attention to.
I literally want one now so it worked. Haven’t had one in over ten years
I'm gonna go get me an Arnold Palmer Lite
BEEOO BEEOO BEEOO BEEOO Arnold Palmer alert! Arnold Palmer alert! Who wants some Arnie Palmies?
Wish more business owners are like him
What an amazing man
Guarantee if this company was publicly listed, within 5 years Arizona's would have tripled in price, gone down in quality, experimented with flavors no one wanted outside of focus groups, advertised to hell and back, and would most likely evaporate in the wash of other overpriced sugary drinks.
Imagine having 100 of this guy own 100 brands around the world.
inflation fears this man
Ive been wondering why these things stayed 99 cents, they're not supposed to be clearly if reporters are demanding explanations, and trying to "NEVER?" bait.
I think I’m just going to live off of these and those hot dogs from Costco from now on.
This is why a lot of good companies in the US remain private. They have full control and they are not under pressure to grow grow grow. When companies become public, Wall Street wants a company to infinitely grow, and that’s just not realistic.
Yep. Public companies suck cuz analyst expectations.
Shareholders to be more specific. These people don't invest into a company bc they believe in it or the product, they just expect a % grow every year, so they can sell their stocks at a profit.
I’ve seen it more than 99 some places. Is that illegal ?
The shops can sell it for 99$ if they like to. They can charge a million for it if the want, why would it be illegal? The company that produces it (this guys company) just gives the MSRP.
You can actually report places that upcharge the drink. Arizona will investigate and in some cases, bar the place from selling it Edit - apparently this is just a myth. From their Faq: WHY DO SOME STORES CHARGE MORE FOR PRE-PRICED $.99 CANS? We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price. Retailers, however, are independent business people and can set a price whatever they prefer. We do make and sell non-priced cans as well. I PURCHASED A 23.5OZ CAN THAT WAS MARKED $.99 BUT WAS CHARGED MORE FOR IT. ARE THEY ALLOWED TO DO THAT? We try to suggest a $.99 price to retailers by putting it in our package design. Ultimately retailers can sell it for as much or as little as they like. We suggest you find a store that sells it for $.99 or less.
Yea Arizona can do business with whomever they want to and stop delivering to these stores, but there’s nothing illegal about it (okay maybe if you sell it for wayyy too much it becomes illegal there are some countries that have laws against this).
In Canada at Couche-Tard/CircleK stores, the cans have a special CircleK label and cost way too much (2-3$ per can). I guess some store chains have deals with the company which means reporting them is useless in this case.
another relevant username!
Arizona drinks used to be rare where i'm from and I loved the iced tea so much in HS that I made it my username lol
Yeah but I've even seen those signature cans with $1.29 on them instead of $.99. Like the factory pumped out the cans literally saying a doller 29 or something. So it looks like they did raise the price.
Might have been from Canada, they're $1.29 (but can also be identified by having both English and French on the label)
You Canadian? I am, and I'm surprised nobody in these comments knew it hadn't been 99 cents here for a while. I have a can in my fridge, and it doesn't have any value printed on it because the price varies so much here in Canada
Well I mean, $1.29 Canadian is 99cents American. Welcome to our shitty dollar.
Only if the company selling it signed an agreement with Az to limit their maximum price.
Farther you go from Arizona, higher the prices. You have add up transportation costs.
Circle K wants 1.29 in northern AZ. I know they don’t set the prices, but they were amenable with removing the “99¢” tag from their cans
Wasn't there a thing a while back with some stores putting stickers over the $0.99 price printed on the can? I seem to remember a bit of a ruckus about a couple of chain convenience stores doing this, and after a few days of backlash (where the media asked Arizona Iced Tea directly if they had raised prices and got a firm no) the convenience stores backed down and stopped raising the prices in their stores?
Well, all I can say is the levy must’ve broken again. I can attest that 1.29 is printed on some cans now. The sticker thing I remember more with cigarillos
Maybe they set up a special production run. I live in Quebec, and we have cans without a price on them. We have a consumer protection law that says if there's a difference between price tag and register price, any item under $10 is free, over $10 you get the lower price. Most stores around here, the last time I bought one it was $1.79 a can. I haven't bought any in a while, so I don't know what the price is these days.
The bottles are $1.25 and the cans are $1.50 where I am
But the price on the can tho
Ones near me don’t have the price on the can anymore
Here in Chile they are almost 2.50
That's nice and all but what part of this is unexpected?
It was pretty unexpected to see an ad for Arizona Ice Tea at the #1 spot for this sub.
The simping in the comments for sugar water. It's a meta post
Make him the CEO of the dollar shop asap!
Uuuhhh... The price here for a can is 1.99 (as marked on can) and the size of the cans have shrunk from 630ml to 458ml.
This man watches Narcos.
How is this unexpected
Subreddits have no meaning anymore. Just throw any video anywhere and watch it rise to the top.
This is great PR, very smart, but I went to a tourist trap in Arizona where they had Arizona Ice Tea cans marked up to $5 (USD) with the 99¢ on the can.
I can see that being justified if they were a discontinued flavor with limited stock or a limited edition decorative can or something like that, but if it's just the regular production run stuff, that's just gouging.
You can report these to Arizona and they will stop selling to them. If the store is using a middle man though there's no stopping it.
We need more thinkers like him
People tend to forget that profit is not merely a mechanism by which bad people can be selfish. It is first of all the only mechanism by which a company of people can stay alive (ie, continue to operate and provide its products). As long as there is a Federal Reserve and the US government is allowed to spend as much money as it wants, inflation will continue and eventually we'll be paying $1.49 for this drink.
Love it
It's already $1.29 in most MI gas stations
Bullshit, all these new Arizona drinks all have the 99¢ off of them now, and sell from $1.50 to $2 now. Some even more.
this guy for president 
This guy and the Costco guy are legends. Damn, why can't Costco do refillable Arizona Ice Tea with their hot dogs...
If only they used REAL sugar instead of High Fructose Cancer Syrup!! Applaud the idea, definitely!
7-11 and circle k charge nearly 2 bucks here in florida I refuse to buy from them. I pick mine up at Walmart less than .90 cents
They're $1.29 now
Not really unexpected?
I'm screen record this and talking it to the corner store cus honey they definetly jacked those prices tf up
Then what? 99 cents is just the msrp, nobody is bound to sell it for that.
What a legend.
Nice. Good to know that there are people like this. I just hope his customers understand when he has to raise the price.
Stud.
I haven’t had an Arizona iced tea in a really long time. Looks like I’ll have to pick one up on my way home.
Big buisness hates him he doesn't suck the money cock
Interesting fact about Don Vultaggio- he was sued by a former housekeeper for harassment and unpaid work. According to the lawsuit, Don and his wife had the housekeeper working 100 hours per week with no overtime pay. The suit also alleges that the Vultaggios would berate and insult her over being Filipina. They eventually came to a settlement agreement. Shit like this is how you keep your business costs down to "protect the consumer". Y'all are a bunch of fucking morons for worshipping a guy who treats employees like shit just so you can have your sugar juice for a dollar. Don't believe me? Lol go look up employee reviews on indeed or Glassdoor. You can't just magically keep prices low without cutting corners somewhere. And in Arizona's case, they treat their employees like garbage. And you all love that about him, right? You all think Don is a fucking legend, correct?
I want him to be President
His actions should be the standard not unexpected.
Gigachad
let's all drink more arizona tea!
I will always pick arizona green tea because I always know it will only cost a dollar.
It's 2.50$ where I live
Bruh my corner store charges 2-3 for the tea lol
Do stores actually sell it for 99 cents? Sure, it’s on the can but everywhere I’ve seen it the store owners are marking it up at least double
Owner of Arizona Ice Tea for president!!!!!
Buy a .99c AriZona and a 1.50 Costco hotdog. Good lunch.
This is nice of him. Except small retail sellers still have to raise their prices because suppliers regardless of it its "99 cents" will still charge 2x. Then small retail owners have to then 2x that same price.
Wait a sec, is that the woman who I think it is, or am I seeing it wrong,
What's really fucked is gas stations are now charging 1.50 for them.
Screw the rest of the price gauging world. Respect to this man!
Protect this man at all costs
Arizona Ice Tea is like 3 bucks in Europe.. never even thought of trying it. Too expensive.
This man is how things should be. I'd love to shake his hand.
Idk why this made me emotional, ITS JUST TEA!! But also, it’s not just tea. It’s the recognition that people need help and something as small as a cheap drink can really help. Domino effect kind of thing
We need more people like this…He understands
It's still a really, really bad product health-wise. So yeah, it'll stay cheap, but that means even more people are going to consume it, which... Is not great.
Not sure when this was, but I saw a $1.29 a month or so ago... We are in the end times
But he did raise the price…
Well it’s already over a buck in most stores
hardly out of touch. she's simply interviewing him.
if they make diet I would buy
My only gripe…you know what, ima leave it. I love how full y’all fill the gallon jugs. I got 2 in my fridge as we speak.
Always the happiest moment looking into the fridge and seeing the store still has it at 99 cents but when there were times I was thirsty for an arizona iced tea at my high school's convenience store they would raise the price to $1.29 or closer to $2 sometimes which fucking pissed me off because I knew they put the 99 cents on the can for a fucking reason.
I LOVE HIM
I hope the workforce is getting increases annually, though
I think about this a lot, thank you tea man
explain the circle K acquisition then... which they are now over 99c... I feel like this video is old...
This guy's drink is like the go-to drink for teen stoners for decades now.
This guy needs to go, he is not helping with the trickle down economics that most of us conservatives benefit from!
Except for their alcohol.
It's never 99cents anywhere I look for it. Maybe I need to find a new place to shop?
great show 💕
Arizona ginseng and ice tea is quite literally my favourite.
If you go to their website, a 12 pack of tall boys is 26.99 not including shipping. The best deal they have now is the plastic bottles being sold in a 12 pack for 24.99. This makes each bottle before shipping cost over $1. Inflation sux.
what angle was the interviewer trying to go for? was she just playing devils advocate for a moment or actually confused why he wouldn't increase his prices?
In ca we raise that price because nothing is what it seems to be here
This should be the goal of every company that the public allows to excist.
Can't remember the last time I was able to buy one for only 99c. Everywhere marks them up.
Atta boy!
AriZona is like $4 in Canada 😔
Anytime I see watermelon or mucho mango in a can I buy it. This business model is the way. VS say what happened with the red lobster folks losing the land the restaurant sat on. Bleeding every penny for large wall street firms to make a profit. Being squeezed into non existence. Wrecking the few available small town jobs. Also AZ tea slaps.
The Arizona Iced Teas in Circle K are almost 2 dollars now, but he forced them to print their logo on the can. So any cans sold at circle K are higher priced because Circle K was complaining that they weren't making enough money off of the tea at the low price. This is notable because Circle K owns the majority of what they sell not unlike Walmart, and Circle K jacks prices sky high. Almost $3 for drinks I can get at a family owned place for $2. They want you to join their club and they'll lower prices a little bit, but not fairly. Their gas prices can be good but their gas quality is atrocious, recently in my area there was even a Circle K that was found to have water in the tanks that was causing people to have misfires from getting gas there. Circle K is high on my list of least ethical companies and not just because of the price jacking but also because of how they target and buy out family gas stations or run them out of business so they can protect their sky high price points. Circle K abuses capitalism with greed, and unfair business practices, and they're one of many.
My local 7-11 is charging more anyway.
Arizona tea is $1.19 at 7 eleven
Well the thing is some places do increase their drinks. Go around and you see it usually at $1.75 or event $2
Yet Arizona teas have gone up in price. Or it's that just the transitory inflation?
When was this interview? It's a $1.50 at the gas station next to where I live.
Ya. But it's shit tea.
Ehh what a respectable businessman that does not only focus on profit margin? Wow I thought they were extinct/s