Private Label Buyer

Private label innovation is largely lacking in frozen foods, experts say. And PLBuyer’s secret shoppers found little price difference between PL and national brands, a potential turn-off to buying private label items here.

 

Retailers are pricing private label frozen foods closer to their national brand equivalents than has been seen in other stores aisles visited this year, report PLBuyer’s secret shoppers. Of the four stores surveyed by our shoppers, only one store showed a price gap of more than a dollar between a frozen food item and a national brand.

Techie types have been hyping the changes that mobile phones would bring to retailing for at least the past decade. Now, thanks to the growing ubiquity of smart phones with Web capabilities, that hype is becoming reality.

Indeed, the Deloitte 2011 Consumer Food and Products Insights study, released in July, found that 40 percent of U.S. consumers are using shopping lists and recipe management tools on their mobile phones today.

Shoppers at all income levels are looking for deals And in food shopping today, that increasingly means that shoppers expect coupons. Yet overall, couponing activity for store brands is underdeveloped, experts say.

Retailers may feel their private label products already offer value to consumers; however, coupon users like the thrill-of-the-hunt experience that coupon savings offer. Given the explosion of coupons being offered electronically, on mobile devices and via other means, store brands should be represented in the mix. By offering store brand coupons, retailers have the opportunity to influence purchase decisions and drive brand affinity to their private label products.

 

Retailers must put more emphasis into on-shelf comparisons for private label non-food items. Read what else PLBuyer's secret shoppers found that can help you improve your PL sales.

 

Retailers must put more of a focus on promoting non-food items both in-store and on the shelves, report PLBuyer’s secret shoppers. Of the three stores visited across the country by our secret shoppers this month, none had on-shelf price comparisons and only one had any kind of in-store private label advertising in the non-food aisle of the store.

Running a store is like building a good baseball team. A lot of people, or in this case, products, try out but not everyone makes the cut. That is where SKU rationalization comes into play. An analytical process, SKU (stock-keeping unit) rationalization determines which items need to be added, removed or kept on the shelves.

Flexible packaging is moving into new private label categories, offering retailers more ways to attract consumer attention on-shelf.

 

Sometimes it’s not about what’s inside the package that counts, it’s about what you do with the package itself. A flexible package is, by nature, a more abstract palette to work with than a cardboard box. While a box has four sides, a top and a bottom, a flexible package it is not limited to such strict dimensions.
And that design flexibility means the packaging type is expanding into new categories, giving retailers more options for attracting consumers to their private label offerings.

 

Editor’s Note: PLBuyer reached out to attendees at two recent events held by ECRM (Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing) to discuss current issues in the private label world. What follows are edited transcripts of those two industry roundtables, one held at an ECRM event in April targeted at the food segment and the other at a May ECRM event targeted at the health and beauty care segment. The HBC roundtable discussion starts here, see page 10 for the food discussion.

 

Where’s the In-store PL Marketing?

 

That’s a question PLBuyer’s editorial board addresses, along with a host of others about private label sales, in this quarter’s virtual roundtable. Read what they think about consumers’ attitudes and private label sales.

While many consumers turned to private label during the economic downturn, it’s up to retailers to keep them coming back for more.

 

No matter who you ask or which research study you read, widespread consensus surfaces that constraint and resourcefulness are the new norms in grocery shopping. Given the still less-than-robust economy, a tight consumer credit market and sluggish consumer confidence, Americans have changed the way they shop.

A spat of private label introductions in early 2010 signal that retailers are diversifying their private label portfolios with new tiers that go beyond their traditional national brand equivalent offerings.

If you plan to join the rush, consider: How large does the line need to be? What will be the price points in relation to brand competitors? How does your company create a buzz about the new tier among consumers?