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The purpose of this study is to analyze the current scenario of private labels from consumers and retailers’ point of view and provide inputs to the retailers that will help them to increase their profitability. Profitability for retailers is a resultant of efficient inventory management in a limited space. This paper studies consumer’s purchase behavior and facilitates retailers in their decision-making of the dilemma between the appropriate mix of national brands (NBs) and private labels to increase their profitability. Retailers will be able to do cross-merchandising of the categories of the goods having strong associations and will increase the shelf space of the products, which are preferred by customers.

Market basket analysis was done for 1,223 transactions including two or more product categories in each transaction. In total, 564 products were studied and these products were further divided into 23 categories. Lift analysis was done 4 times to find an association between the products of all the categories.

The results find a strong association between some categories and advocate the placement of these combinations together – one being a NB and another private label.

Analysis of only a limited set of brands and their product categories for a value retailer cross-merchandising.

The analysis of sales transactions will help retailers in determining the associations between product categories. This association will be helpful in placing their private labels vis-à-vis NBs to do cross-merchandising and allocating judicial space to the product assortment to increase their profitability.

Private label brands have achieved double-digit growth in the Thai market. To expand market share, private label brands need to identify clearly what triggers consumer purchases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer decision-making styles and actual purchases of private label products in a Thai market context, using price consciousness, quality consciousness, brand consciousness, value consciousness, and risk perception as factors for investigation.

Responses from a total of 240 respondents from four product categories were collected through mall intercepts in five hypermarkets and supermarkets in Bangkok, and a regression-based model was employed to identify the associations.

The results indicate a significant relationship between price-conscious and brand-conscious consumers, and private label purchases and show that the relationship between quality-conscious, value-conscious, and risk-adverse consumers and private label purchases is insignificant. It concludes that price-conscious consumers are the ones most likely to purchase private label products in low-differentiation categories. An opposite relationship prevails for consumers who are brand conscious in low-differentiation, high-risk, and low-risk categories.

The outcomes of this research suggest that private label brands should maintain a low-price strategy while striving for continuous improvement in quality to capture additional quality- and value-conscious consumers. It also suggests that national brands invest in brand-building strategies rather than competing on price.

This study enhances an understanding of consumer decision-making characteristics for actual private label purchases rather than the intention to purchase and is useful in suggesting an alternative to socio-economic factors as a method of identifying private label purchasers.

This paper aims to use Q methodology to investigate Millennial perceptions toward private label or national brand apparel.

Q methodology was chosen to identify factors, which correspond to patterns of perceptions prevalent among Millennials. Participants were supplied with 14 statements that they sorted into two Q sorts – One representing perceptions of private label and the other representing perceptions of national brands. The Q sorts were completed through Qualtrics and participants answered open-ended questions on the placement of each statement within each Q sort.

Two factors emerged on private labels, highlighting patterns in price consciousness and uniqueness (acknowledged as patterns surrounding the desire for particular apparel characteristics). Three factors arose for national brand apparel, emphasizing the need for national brands to provide consumers with product security, quality and uniqueness (as identified through the unpreferred qualities national brands typically exhibit).

This study illustrates the various viewpoints retailers must consider when marketing apparel to a specific target demographic. In addition, a single perception (uniqueness) was found to connect motivations, which led to the development of a model for future inquiry.

Despite complete Q sorts and qualitative statements, participants' unfamiliarity with Q methodology and the sorting action of statements could be considered a limitation. The use of MTurk is also considered a limitation owing to the anonymity and possible deception of the workforce.

Private label brand personality growth has many retailers expanding their brand portfolios. Based on the findings of this study, specific opportunities are highlighted for the expansion and marketing of private labels and brand labels based on specific perceptions of a broad Millennial cohort.

Eliminating overpackaging is a central question in sustainable development, and poses a dilemma for retailers. Since packaging is a differentiation tool for private labels, eliminating it could limit the capacity to give those labels an equivalent image to national brands just as much as it could be a sustainable development opportunity and a positioning instrument. Drawing on the attribution theory framework, the purpose of this paper is to examine how eliminating overpackaging influences consumers’ perception of products sold under generic and mimic private labels, and their purchase intention.

This research uses a 2 (overpackaging: present vs absent)×2 (brand concept: generic vs mimic private label) between-subjects experiment on a convenience sample of 217 French consumers. The conceptual framework was tested using ANCOVA and mediation analyses.

The experiment shows that eliminating overpackaging does have an influence on mimic private labels’ image, particularly on perceived quality, convenience and environmental friendliness. The authors also find that this influence negatively transfers to purchase intention for mimic private labels through lower perceived quality and convenience. No such effect appears for generic private labels’ image.

This study addresses an issue as yet unexplored in marketing – the effect of overpackaging on private label products – and proposes areas for managerial and societal reflection relevant to retail chains interested in eliminating overpackaging.

This exploratory research paper aims to contribute to the international marketing and brand development literature by demonstrating that significant cross‐national differences exist between Chinese and US university students regarding beliefs and perceptions of private label branding.

A total of 1,070 usable surveys were collected in the USA and 252 in China. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS data analysis software. The US student sample was collected from a comprehensive university located in the western USA. The Chinese sample was collected from a large university in Hefei. Hefei is the capital city of Anhui Province and a center for higher education.

The researchers compared US and Chinese university students in four areas: important attributes when purchasing food‐related products; beliefs about private label brands and price loyalty; perceptions about private label brands; and recognition of private label brands. US and Chinese respondents had statistically significant differences when addressing beliefs and perceptions concerning private label brands. Most notable is the difference concerning product pricing: US consumers indicate that price has a greater effect on the decision to purchase when compared with Chinese consumers. The data seem to indicate that Chinese consumers believe that private label food products may be of inferior quality compared to manufacture brands. Additionally, the data indicate indirectly that Chinese respondents either do not have an understanding of private label products, or that private label names are not recognized as such.

One limitation of this paper is that the data may indicate the non‐availability of private label products to Chinese consumers, rather than a perception that private label products are of lower quality. Additionally, this study documents perceptions regarding private label products, not why respondents perceive private label products in a certain way. A final limitation is that respondents are university students that, while they are excellent candidates, they probably do not currently hold the role of main food purchaser for their families. Future research would benefit from a broader demographic that includes non‐students as well as a larger number of private label categories. Comparing how marketers educated consumers regarding private label products in western markets, and how private label products are integrated into western markets could be used as a template for a successful rollout in Asian markets.

While this study was exploratory in nature, and narrow in scope, the possibilities of long‐term research in private label branding in emerging market economies is quite exciting. Will the Chinese adopt private label products, as US consumers have done? To this end, a proverb from Deng Xiaoping seems appropriate: “Black cat or white cat: If it can catch mice, it's a good cat.” Whether a private label brand or a manufacture brand, it is up to marketers to help the Chinese consumers see value in both types of brand offerings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of brand strategies and spokesperson expertise on consumer responses to hypermarket private-label products by combining concepts from consumer attitude change, resistance to persuasion and construal level theory (CLT).

Two experiments were conducted to test the propositions.

Consumers perceived the low-price (low-quality) characteristic of private-label products as a high-level (low-level) construal consideration when forming purchase decisions. Product relevance negatively affected consumers’ perceived product distance. Compared with store brands, separate brands enhanced consumer product attitudes and purchase intentions. Brand strategies and product distance affected consumer message-processing mindset (i.e. resistant to persuasion or open to persuasion) when processing advertisements, ultimately moderating the effect of spokesperson expertise.

The findings are useful for hypermarkets seeking to implement brand strategies and select spokespersons for private-label products. Additionally, the findings show that advertisers should design advertising elements to match consumers’ construal approaches to product-related information.

This study contrasts two common hypermarket brand strategies, identifies the construal levels corresponding to the dual roles of private-label products and expands CLT dimensions. Additionally, the results bridge two research approaches (persuasion and resistance to persuasion) and demonstrate the pivotal influence of brand strategies. The findings also advance understanding of the effects of spokesperson expertise and contribute to resistance theory by showing how to effectively reduce attitude certainty after resistance to persuasion.

This research paper aims to understand which factors influence the purchase of private label food products, by measuring the importance of 14 variables for purchasing frequency.

Data were collected through questionnaires to a sample of consumers. They have been analysed according to the extra tree classifier methodology, which allows providing a more reliable classification – compared to previous studies – of factors affecting consumers' choices of private label products.

Results show that consumers' choices related to private label food products are influenced by groups of heterogeneous variables related to their perception on products, satisfaction of post-consumption, store's role and trust built over time by retailers.

Data have been collected through an online survey, which could generate the bias of self-selection; the sampling method is non-probabilistic.

The study provides useful indications on the role of private labels in retailer management policies and on marketing competences and skills that are necessary for managing retailers' assortments.

The existing literature lacks clarity on the factors that influence the frequency of purchasing private label food products. By considering a higher number of variables than previous studies, it has been possible to classify and measure the importance of each variable included in the analysis framework adopted, also in case of correlation between variables.

The purpose of this paper is to determine which strategic objective factors have significant effects on competitive advantage of private label manufacturers in Turkey.

A study was conducted of 90 Turkish private label manufacturers. A web‐based questionnaire was the chosen method.

Three strategic objective factors were found to have an effect on competitive advantage: production efficiency, market embeddedness and product selling control.

A comparative analysis between retailers and manufacturers of private labels was regarded as necessary to learn about their perspectives regarding competition. The large sample size encouraged confident generalization of the findings. Another limitation was only analyzing data from a country that has a low private label market share.

The findings of this paper offer valuable insights to retailers, national brand manufacturers and private label manufacturers, enabling them to learn the triggers for product manufacturing from the perspective of private label manufacturers.

It is hoped that this paper will reveal some valuable perspectives from an emerging private label market.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of private label product type (organic vs non-organic) on the relationships between trust transfer, price fairness, perceived value and brand loyalty.

The empirical data were gathered with the structured questionnaire from two groups of respondents who had previously purchased organic and conventional private label products. The direct, mediating and moderating effects were analysed with structural equation modelling.

The findings confirmed the trust transfer between the retail store and private label brand. The results revealed that both store trust and trust in private label brand positively influence price fairness and which, in turn, elicits higher perceived value. Perceived value was also found to influence private label brand loyalty. The multi-group analyses revealed that the magnitude of the trust transfer was accentuated by organic food private label. Furthermore, the relation between trust in private label brand, price fairness and perceived value was also greater in organic food private label.

This study utilized the trust transfer theory and equity theory as a theoretical foundation to provide novel insights into the moderating influence of private label product type on the relationships between the antecedents of private label brand loyalty. The results of the research can help retailers to develop successful private label brand marketing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how well grocery stores' motives to implement private labels (create margins and customer perceived brand value, compete with market leading brands, develop store image, enhance store loyalty) are realized, through exploring consumers' attitudes, preferences and behaviour.

The paper is based on the case of Sweden and interviews with the primary grocery purchaser in 300 households who have visited an ICA store (a Swedish supermarket chain) within a time period of the previous 30 days before the interview.

The study shows that there is a correlation between perceived quality and the price customers are willing to pay for private label products. Results also show that there is a strong correlation between perceived value of private label products in specific categories and the stores' overall product variety image. The study further supports the assumption that store loyalty is influenced by the perceived value of the grocery retailer's private label products.

The study is limited to Sweden and to only one retail chain. Also, it is an attitude‐ and survey‐based approach rather than based on observation or actual spending data.

The results will guide retailers if and how they are fulfilling their ambitions regarding their private label merchandises. The study could provide manufacturers and consumer organizations an insight into how consumers respond to this new phenomenon.

It is a report beyond the dominating empirical research contexts of the UK and USA. From a conceptual point of view, the paper adopts a more holistic approach investigating the four major retailer motives simultaneously.