[ensignavenger]

Hmm, that is interesting insight. I wonder if he isn't drawing the wrong conclusions about the cause of these market inconsistencies? It may not be the airlines or soft drink distributors that make markets more profitable or less profitable for suppliers- it may be the consumers. Perhaps consumers in some soft drink markets are more price sensitive than others? Perhaps airline customers are more price sensitive than cereal customers? For example- Cereal customers want to eat what they like, it it doesn't matter if it costs them $0.50 more for the brand they know well. Whereas an airline customer may or may not fly very often, and they really don't know who is better, or they don't care, they just want to get to their destination while spending as little as possible- makes it hard to differentiate your product.

Soft drink distributors are an interesting case- they sell the same thing, with the same brand, in different markets- apparently some are profitable and others aren't. I would guess it has to do with price sensitivity of the customers in a given market- some markets may not prefer one beverage over another as strongly as other markets, whereas they may be much more price sensitive.