It's not new news that retailers are looking to upgrade their private labels. Today, many see the creation of national brand equivalents at a lower price as the starting point for their business. Some are now looking to deliver super premium items at premium level prices.
Quality is the watchword with a whole host of merchants, including Costco, Kroger, Publix, Safeway, Target, Trader Joe's, Wegmans and Whole Foods, producing private labels that many consumers prefer to national brands.
While many consumers are first attracted to a private label because of price, that is not typically enough to keep them coming back.
In a 2010 RetailWire poll, 84 percent of respondents pointed to product quality as the most important factor for retailers looking to maintain or build on store brand gains made during the Great Recession.
"It starts on price — that's why people gravitate toward it," Steve Rosenstock, consumer products industry leader for Clarkston Consulting, told The Associated Press. "But what we've seen is they develop loyalty to store brands that is commensurate with the loyalty they had with national brands."