Retail & Distribution

On November 12, 2026 the federal definition of hemp narrows and roughly 95 percent of hemp-derived THC products stop qualifying. The Senate has voted to push that date to December 11. What changes, what does not, and what should go in the space.

If you work in beverage alcohol long enough, the same question keeps coming up. A new hire asks what they should study. A distributor rep wants to level up. A retail manager wants a credential on the wall. A brand owner wants their team trained. And every time, the same alphabet soup gets thrown around. WSET. Cicerone. CMS. CSS. AFNA. Sommelier. Master this. Certified that.

Discover the best learning techniques for retail training. Learn how spaced repetition, active recall, and contextual learning improve knowledge retention.

Today, we're proud to announce the launch of PKGD University, a professional credentialing platform built in partnership with PKGD Group, one of the leading importers of heritage, producer-owned agave spirits in the United States.

If your staff can't explain the difference between a Pinot Noir and a Pinot Grigio, they're not selling wine. They're stocking shelves.

If you run a liquor store, bottle shop, grocery alcohol department, or convenience store, you already know the math. You hire someone, spend a few weeks getting them up to speed, and then they leave. You start over. Repeat.

The alcoholic beverage industry is evolving quickly, and 2025 is set to be a defining year for key trends. Among the most impactful shifts are the rise of low/no-alcohol drinks, the explosion of ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails, and the continued premiumization of spirits and other beverages.

Anyone can drink. Tasting is a different skill, and it's the one that separates a rep who moves product from one who just hands over a sample. When you can taste with intention, you can describe what's in the glass, assess quality before you present it, match a customer to the right bottle, and justify a premium price in terms a buyer actually feels. That's true behind the bar, on the sales floor, and in front of an on-premise account. The good news is that tasting is learnab

Whether you’re stocking shelves, serving cocktails, or answering guest questions, this course gives you the essential talking points you need to recommend whiskey with ease.

Strong customer service starts with the ability to manage difficult situations. That’s why we created the De-escalation and Conflict Management course on Learn Brands: a training built for real retail environments.

Support your team. Improve customer experience. Boost retention. Retail environments like liquor stores, bars, tasting rooms, and distribution hubs can be high-pressure and fast-moving.

Gin is one of the harder spirits to sell well. The category exploded over the past decade, the styles vary wildly from one bottle to the next, and most shoppers walk in with a single fixed idea of what gin tastes like.

Sampling, tastings, ride-alongs, trade events. Here's how beverage alcohol brands plan activation marketing campaigns that actually move cases off the shelf.

The brands winning shelf space aren't the loudest. They're the best trained. Here's how beverage alcohol brands use distributor enablement to turn three-tier complexity into a competitive advantage.