[task_queue]

Companies will often sign shelf-space and display agreements with supermarkets when it comes to displaying their brands' products in-store. There very well might be an agreement between Safeway and Nabisco when it comes to their inventory display.

[thaumasiotes]

I don't see how this could lead to the observed results. Nabisco shouldn't be any less interested in selling more Parmesan Garlic triscuits while selling the same quantity of other triscuits than Safeway should be. There is no party who gets a win out of just not ordering/selling the triscuits; this is a pure loss for everyone involved.

[greeneggs]

Safeway might be required to devote equal shelf space to each of the 24 varieties of Triscuit [1], or perhaps at least the same minimum amount of shelf space to each variety. Nabisco doesn't want some competitor to grab that shelf space. And maybe Safeway doesn't find it worthwhile to train its stockers to restock one variety more frequently than the others.

[1] https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/triscuit-flavors-how-many-a...

[task_queue]

Brands went on a diversification kick less than a decade ago. If a customer prefers Triscuits Flavor #5, but stores only stock popular Flavor #3, that person might not choose to buy the brand at all when they go shopping. They could reach for, and learn to prefer, a competitor's brand.

If a potential new customer doesn't like popular Triscuits flavors, but sees a newer but a less popular flavor, the availability and visibility of the less popular but still desirable flavors might convert them into a customer.

[thaumasiotes]

> If a customer prefers Triscuits Flavor #5, but stores only stock popular Flavor #3, that person might not choose to buy the brand at all when they go shopping. They could reach for, and learn to prefer, a competitor's brand.

...this is exactly the situation I'm complaining about, except that the customer prefers Popular Flavor #3, which the store doesn't stock, to Unpopular Flavor #5, which it does.