Thou doth protest too much: How the minimum unit price affected retailers' revenue

AbstractIntroductionThe Northern Territory (NT) set a minimum unit price (MUP) of alcohol in 2018. This measure has been strongly opposed by alcohol retailers, prior to and post‐implementation of the policy. However, exact estimates on the impact of the MUP on alcohol retailers are yet to be made. This study aims to estimate the impact of the MUP on retail sales.MethodThe 3‐year evaluation of the MUP used sales data from two major retailers to display alcohol consumption in the NT by beverage category and price point the year before and after the MUP. This data was extracted from the report and used to estimate the total retail value of alcohol sold before and after the MUP by category. State‐wide alcohol wholesaler data was used to evaluate the representativeness of the retail data.ResultsThe retail data used in the study accounts for 31% of the total alcohol market in the NT. Retail data substantially over‐represents the drop in cask wine consumption (71%) compared to wholesaler data (51%). Revenue from cask wine dropped by 42% after the introduction of the MUP, but these reductions were offset by increases in revenue from spirit sales. Overall, despite a 6% decrease in sales of pure alcohol, the two retailers had an increase in revenue of 1%.Discussion and ConclusionsThe MUP appears to have had a negligible impact on the revenue of alcohol retailers in the NT.