Consumers High on Store Brands
As reported in an article titled “What Difference – A Closer Look” from PL Buyer, in a recent survey done by IpsosMarketing, the results displayed a continued trend towards consumer favoritism of private label brands. These numbers escalated well above national brands and for many reasons. While all of this will sound rather familiar, what makes this study even more interesting is that it’s not just focused on the U.S., but rather on a global spectrum.
The survey included respondents from 23 countries, including China, Germany, Mexico, India and Australia. In other words, every continent is included in this study, with the exception of Antarctica. The consensus of the study among the various nations was a rather unified one. A total of 81% of the global consumer respondents claimed that private label products offer the same, satisfying taste as do national brands. The days of consumers associating private label with “trade-off” products or “lower-priced” products are gone. Roughly 80% agreed that store brands are the same, if not better, than national brands in the sense of convenience, meeting the needs of the consumer and being environmentally-friendly. The chart below displays key findings of the survey.
While the popularity of store brands continues to dominate, a few key areas were also highlighted in the survey pertaining to areas in which store brands could improve in the consumer’s mind. A few of these areas were to offer products that are of higher quality, unique and innovative. All in all, the content factor of today’s store brands seems to be here for the long-run. So, look out!
The article by PL Buyer can be found here. Also, the IpsosMarketing study itself can downloaded here.
P.S. According to the article, countries such as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan ranked store brands higher than the United States. However, the U.S. wasn’t too far behind after ranking 5th.
