Analysing proprietary, private label and non-brands in fresh produce purchases
When purchasing packaged products within a supermarket, consumers choose between proprietary or private label brands. However, when purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables, non-branded produce is the dominant option – with proprietary and private label brands only recently becoming available. Previous FMCG research finds that proprietary and private label brands affect consumer loyalty - however, no research exists for fresh categories. This research is the first to determine the effect of emerging brands in fresh categories on consumer buying behaviour. Our research examines consumers’ loyalty towards proprietary, private label, or non-branded fresh fruits and vegetables and the level of customer sharing between these options, using analytical approaches applicable to FMCG categories. The panel data contains nearly 46,000 households making over eight million purchases in the United States during 2015. Results show that proprietary, private label, and now non-branded fresh produce have expected loyalty levels, for their size, and consumers share their purchases across the three options (i.e., consumers are not loyal to just one option). The study analyses and interprets purchase data in fresh categories offering marketing academics and practitioners actionable advice for working with fresh produce purchase data.
CitationAnesbury, Z., Jürkenbeck, K., Bogomolov, T., Bogomolova, S. (2020) "Analysing proprietary, private label and non-brands in fresh produce purchases". Forthcoming in the International Journal of Market Research.
The nature and incidence of private label rejection
This paper examines the incidence of consumers’ rejection of private labels (PLs) of different price-quality tiers and the underlying reasons for this rejection. The rejection of PLs is compared to the rejection of national brands (NBs) in five food product categories across the UK and Australia. The findings indicate that only 8% of PL non-users in the UK market, and 20% in the Australian market, actively reject PLs. This rejection incidence is higher for PLs than for NBs in three of the five categories. The reasons for brand rejection differ between PLs and NBs. PLs are rejected due to a perception of low quality inferred from extrinsic product cues. In contrast, NBs are rejected primarily because of a negative past experience with a brand. The findings highlight the importance of extrinsic cues for PLs to minimise the incidence of con- sumer rejection. The generally low rejection of PLs implies that PLs are a real threat to NBs. This paper extends the rejection literature to PLs and quantifies the rejection levels and reasons.
CitationNenycz-Thiel, M. and Romaniuk, J., 2011. The nature and incidence of private label rejection. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 19(2), pp.93-99.
The real difference between consumers’ perceptions of private labels and national brands
This paper documents the application of prior knowledge about response patterns in brand image data for private label (PL) brands. We investigate if a well-known pattern about response level and usage experience also holds for PLs. The main finding is that advertised national brands (NBs) enjoy a higher level of knowledge amongst their non-users than do PLs. We did not find this to be the case for small non-advertised NBs and small PLs. The finding emphasises the importance of advertising for NBs to maintain their position. Well-branded and appropriately scheduled advertising leads to building up brand associations in consumers’ memory, which increases the probability of thinking about or noticing a brand. We suggest that the higher knowledge among NB non-users is the main advantage NBs have over PLs in the market. We provide implications of the findings for managers and academia.
CitationNenycz‐Thiel, M. and Romaniuk, J., 2014. The real difference between consumers' perceptions of private labels and national brands. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 13(4), pp.262-269.
