131–140 of 148 posts
Unrelated to actual content: if you visit the site with ad-blocker on, it does not load. Instead, you just have this icon of the eye looking at you and blinking. And the eye will just blink until you turn ad-blocker off. I know the site is called "eye on design", but the associations of user tracking via ads and this blinking eye were amusing to me. Imagine having a blinking eye in the corner of each website for each…
A failed coup attempt.
Rarely is it good to compete with your own vendors. Sometimes it works, but you have to be quick, you have to be brash, and most of all you have to be lucky. The rest of the time you may find yourself having to negotiate with people who remember you tried to stab them in the face.
Heh, up here in Canada the Loblaws grocery chain still sells the No Name generic brand. No Name products are about as simply presented as possible: black text on a yellow package, sometimes with a simple photo of the product. And yet they’re wildly popular (and, of course, cheap). Their website gives a pretty good indication of what their products look like: https://www.noname.ca/en_ca/ They actually experimented for…
This article puts quite a bit of focus on packaging, but I think there is a much bigger picture here. We started using store brand products more and more when the store brand products got better . Not long ago, most store brand foods were very mediocre. It’s only when companies like Costco started creating their own good house brands that my wife and I started going with store brand stuff. With true “generic” product…
The in-store brands are just repackaged name brand products at a reduce price. "Kirkland" is a brand, but they don't really produce anything as far as I know. Most of the time, the actual name brand product is on the same shelf as the in-store branded product, so you can directly compare the ingredients and nutrition labels to see they are identical.
Interestingly, in Australia, major supermarket chain Woolworths used to have two parallel home brands: the bargain-basement Homebrand in stark black & white packaging, and the slightly better but still "designed in the DDR in the 1970s" Essentials. They had to ditch Homebrand, because it looked too cheap and was driving people to discount grocer Aldi, where you could get similar goods in packaging you wouldn't be ash…
Also, don't forget about "Woolworths select", which was no better than homebrand but the tubs oats came in made really good pantry containers, and so in my kitchen anything loose like rice or almonds goes in them.
Trader Joe’s is fascinating. Their own products are unique and you develop a craving for them. That creates serious retention. And over time they’ve designed out more and more third party stuff, replacing it with their own (instead of selling both alongside each other). I’ve never read a business case about them but it seems like a killer strategy
Marks & Spencer seem to be doing that as well. The vast majority of what they sell is their own brand, and apparently it is keeping them in business, COVID notwithstanding. I won’t comment on the quality though, I very rarely shop with them.
In Northern Ireland it's still mocked gently as being a bit pretentious, where the 'ladies who lunch' from Malone do their shopping. But at the same time there is a great affection for the brand as it was the only mainland supermarket company to have a presence in NI throughout the Troubles.
Interestingly, in Australia, major supermarket chain Woolworths used to have two parallel home brands: the bargain-basement Homebrand in stark black & white packaging, and the slightly better but still "designed in the DDR in the 1970s" Essentials. They had to ditch Homebrand, because it looked too cheap and was driving people to discount grocer Aldi, where you could get similar goods in packaging you wouldn't be ash…
It's funny how this turned out, because in Sydney (at least the part where I live), any generic supermarket brand is referred to as "homebrand" instead of "own brand". Also, don't forget about "Woolworths select", which was no better than homebrand but the tubs oats came in made really good pantry containers, and so in my kitchen anything loose like rice or almonds goes in them.
As a kid I always hated having to buy that particular brand because it indicated to everyone that we weren’t able to afford “real” brands. (I’ve thankfully grown out of this mentality. Even now that I’m earning the most I ever have in my life I still try to stick to homebrand as much as possible)
It pains me to go shopping where there are "well-known" brands on display. All that I see is their brand tax slapped onto each product whereas I go to Lidl/Aldi and I have no qualms in buying the knock off products. Same product, different labelling.
Some brands do offer a better product than generics. Just like there’s different quality of silicon chips that result in different quality electronics, I can imagine the same exists for food. Whether or not the price different is worth it is obviously up to the buyer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
Imagine knowing that a discount chain is about to make a regular purchase of 300,000 tins of beans. You will happily rebrand, keep it hushed up and take the repeat large orders. It makes me wonder what the margins are on a single tin of Heinz beans.
Trader Joe’s is fascinating. Their own products are unique and you develop a craving for them. That creates serious retention. And over time they’ve designed out more and more third party stuff, replacing it with their own (instead of selling both alongside each other). I’ve never read a business case about them but it seems like a killer strategy