Deliveries are usually done once a week

Sorry, no. I see those racks being re-stocked at least twice a week under normal circumstances. There are 3-5 full trucks coming in each and every day to this particular RCSS. This is not a tiny town, we have more than a quarter-mill residents in the overall region, about half of which live within city limits.

But I appreciate they needed pop so badly that they checked every day and talked to the manager

You can turn that negative sarcasm off, now. I was making a comment about the Parasite-Class greedwashing first and foremost, the fact that it was soda was just incidental.

And when soda is normally $1.50 to $2.00 per 2L (yes, even the PC cola stuff), it’s a pretty big deal when it’s 68¢ apiece.

Plus, we’ve been out of soda for a month-plus now. Just wanted to stock up for the next half a year (and have some at Christmas) at that price. Is it wrong to take advantage of a deal and have something special to drink for Christmas?

National retailers here do weekly flyers by state - usually one each for regional and metropolitan area stores per state. As long as they haven't overextended locations beyond that which they can reliably supply to, it's really not hard to ensure availability for a product before you put it on sale, or vary the sale conditions according to availability in a way that's totally fair to consumers.

In areas too remote for reliable supply to a national chain location, e.g. remote Western Australia, you just have co-operative independent retailers with their own prices. There needs to be a certain level of suburbia before a national retailer location becomes viable