Startup Zevia tops Pepsi in study of e-commerce

Bloomberg

The race to sell soft drinks online has a surprising second-place winner: Zevia. The zero-calorie, sugar-free soda brand sold more online than Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sprite or Dr Pepper, according to a new study. The Los Angeles-based company only fell short of perennial soda king Coca-Cola, according to 1010data Inc., an analytics company. From March 2016 through February, Coca-Cola and its diet and zero-sugar versions held 22 percent of the US e-commerce market and Zevia had 17 percent. Pepsi (and its zero-sugar and diet versions) trailed with 12 percent.
The playing field is more level for smaller competitors on the internet versus the grocery store, where the largest companies have spent years optimizing their positions on shelves, Zevia Chief Executive Officer Paddy Spence said in an interview.
“The whole basis for selecting products online becomes much more based on the product attributes,” Spence said. This includes calories and ingredients because consumers are looking for healthier options. Zevia beats its bigger rivals “every time from a nutritional perspective,” he said. The biggest soda companies have struggled to cater to increasingly health-conscious consumers. Per-capita soda consumption fell to a 31-year low in the US in 2016, according to Beverage-Digest, a trade publication. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are trying to figure out the best way to migrate from brick-and-mortar stores to the virtual shelves that may be key for future growth.
Amazon.com Inc., the largest e-commerce retailer in the US, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But the site ranks its best-selling soft drinks in a list that’s updated hourly. As of Friday, Diet Coke ranked No. 1, followed by Bai Bubbles Voyager. Two other varieties of Coke were third and fourth, and Zevia rounded out the top five. PepsiCo made its first appearance at eighth with its flagship cola brand.