Towards a Further Understanding of the Antecedents of Retailer New Product Adoption

In addition to the traditionally investigated profit-drivers of retail adoption, such as gross margin, trade support, consumer marketing support, and product uniqueness, the authors investigate to what extent relatively under-investigated variables, such as relationship variables and category variables, are potential antecedents of retailers’ new product adoption decisions. Based on a sample of 392 new product adoption decisions by buyers of a Dutch food retailer, the authors provide evidence that both relationship and category variables do matter in new product adoption decisions by retailers. They show a significant negative effect of relationship dependence, and a significant positive effect of relationship length on a retailer's new product adoption probability. Furthermore, the authors show that higher levels of expected category growth due to the new product introduction are associated with higher levels of retailer adoption probability. Finally, in contrast with all previous retail adoption studies, this study shows a significant, positive relation between the relative gross margin of the new product and the retailer adoption probability.     

Will they return? Getting private label consumers to come back: Price,promotion, and new product effects

Using a hazard model specification with two years of consumer panel data, this study simultaneously quantifies the effects of price gaps, non-monetary promotions, and new products on consumer switching from private labels back to manufacturer brands. The research focuses on the switching phenomena, rather than choice, such that time is a relevant variable. According to the results, non-monetary promotions and new products are more effective for recovering consumers than price gap reductions. These findings underscore the importance of understanding how consumers perceive the value of manufacturer brands.     

Understanding retail branding: conceptual insights and research priorities

With the growing realization that brands are one of a firm's most valuable intangible assets, branding has emerged as a top management priority in the last decade. Given its highly competitive nature, branding can be especially important in the retailing industry to influence customer perceptions and drive store choice and loyalty. We integrate lessons from branding and retail image research to provide a better understanding of how retailers create their brand images, paying special attention to the role of the manufacturer and private label brand assortment. We also highlight some important areas that deserve further research in the form of three sets of research priorities.     

The impact of private labels on consumer store loyalty: An integrative perspective

This research studies the role of private labels (PLs) on consumers’ store loyalty. It offers an integrative approach that comprises several store loyalty drivers (in-store and economic factors), analyzing the role that PLs play among different types of retailers. Data were collected through an online survey. Using structural equation modeling, we run our analysis across different retail formats, assessing which factors lead to store loyalty and to what extent PLs contribute to it. Findings suggest that depending on retailers‘ market positioning, different factors contribute to loyalty and that the impact of PLs is mostly significant for medium-cost and premium supermarkets.     

Determinants of Store Brand Share

Private labels or store brands have witnessed considerable growth in the last few decades, especially in grocery products. However, market shares of store brand vary considerably across categories, markets, and countries. A natural question of interest to academics and practitioners is what factors influence store brand market shares. Drawing on a utility framework, we develop 21 consumer, manufacturer, retailer, and product-market characteristics that can influence store brand share. We test the empirical generalizability of the effect of these determinants through a meta-analysis of data from 54 individual and aggregate market studies. Twenty of the 21 determinants show significant, empirically generalizable effects. We discuss the key findings, their implications, and directions for future empirical research.     

Private labels versus national brands: The effects of branding on sensory perceptions and purchase intentions

Consumers increasingly consider private labels to be as good as national brands. This research raises the question of whether national brands and private labels equally affect consumers’ sensory perceptions and purchase intentions. The results of two studies show that consumers reverse their evaluation of private labels (vs. national brands) when tasting the product in an informed (vs. blind) condition. When consumers are not aware of brand names, they indicate better taste and higher purchase intentions for private labels. However, the opposite is true when they try products in an informed condition. We discuss the implications for private labels and national brands.     

The impact of store flyers on store traffic and store sales: a geo-marketing approach

This paper analyzes the impact of the composition of a retailers’ weekly store flyer on store performance. The paper presents and tests propositions on how a store flyer’s size, its average discount size, and the allocation of store flyer space to category and brand types, affects store traffic and sales. The moderating impact of location variables—socio-demographics of trading area inhabitants, characteristics of the store and competition—is also discussed and empirically tested. The outcomes provide key insights for retailers with regard to the financial ramifications of store flyer competition.     

Factors that influence manufacturer and store brand behavioral loyalty

This study examines the factors that are linked to consumer goods brands having unusually high or low behavioral loyalty, after controlling for the association between brand size and loyalty that occurs due to the ‘double jeopardy’ effect. Behavioral, or repeat-purchase loyalty is measured as the brand's average share of category requirements (in volume) among its buyers over a 12-month period. We examine a range of factors that theory or past evidence suggests are associated with higher or lower behavioral loyalty, including brand type (store brand/manufacturer brand), price level, promotion intensity, as well as average brand volume per occasion and pack size. Using extensive US panel purchasing data, we find that store brands exhibit relatively higher behavioral loyalty than manufacturer brands. We explain the theory behind this result. We also find that the brand's average pack size and volume bought per occasion has a markedly positive association with behavioral loyalty. Finally, we find that the effect of low price on excess loyalty is moderated via a positive association with average volume purchase per occasion. These findings add to the body of knowledge relating to patterns in behavioral brand loyalty for both manufacturer and store brands, as well as the marketing-mix factors that influence it.     

The Effect of Product Innovation,Promotion, and Price on Consumer Switching to Private Labels

The channel conflict that exists between retailers and manufacturers of branded products has dynamically shifted as large retailers have expanded their offerings of private label products. This study investigates the ability of consumer packaged goods companies to exert influence in the channel by testing which marketing initiatives implemented by manufacturer brands are more efficient in preventing consumer switching to private labels. We use a hazard model to simultaneously measure the effects due to product innovation, promotion, and price on consumer switching and how strong those effects are. We find that as expected product innovation, promotion, and price exert a negative effect on the consumer likelihood of switching to private labels. However, we find the strongest effect on promotion suggesting the importance of understanding how consumers perceive value in the national brands offer.     

零售商自有品牌开发路径探索

零售业自有品牌战略是零售企业应对市场激烈竞争的有效手段,它给零售业和工商企业之间的利益关系带来了深刻的影响。创建自有品牌是我国零售商未来发展的一个重要趋势。本文指出了我国零售商创建自有品牌所面临的制约条件,并针对各制约条件提出了相应对策。     

The Impact of Brand Delisting on Store Switching and Brand Switching Intentions

A tool retailers often use to improve their negotiating position with brand manufacturers is to delist - or threaten to delist - the manufacturers’ brand. Because brand manufacturers rely mainly on retailers to sell their products to consumers, a brand delisting will cause a sales loss for the brand manufacturer. Therefore, many brand manufacturers feel enormous pressure to give in and improve buying conditions to favor the retailer. The question thus emerges: Can a brand manufacturer resist a retailer's threat to delist its brand(s)? If a brand delisting severely hurts retail sales, it is easier for a brand manufacturer to resist. The authors study the impact of brand delistings on store switching and brand switching using a controlled online experiment and in-store shopper survey. They develop and test a conceptual model with several antecedents of consumers’ reactions to a brand delisting and conclude that brand equity, market share, and the products’ hedonic level drive store and brand switching.     

A Research Model for Consumers' Intention of Buying Private Label Frozen Vegetables

This article aims at identifying the factors that affect consumers' intentions of buying private label frozen vegetables, developing a related research model, and testing this model using quantitative data from a consumers' sample in Greece.

The field research was carried out in Athens and the sample comprised 282 consumers. Data analysis was performed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results confirmed that:

• Consumers' intention of buying private-label frozen vegetables is directly affected by consumers' attitudes toward this type of products.

• Consumers' attitudes toward private-label frozen vegetables are directly affected by the perceived benefits and indirectly affected by consumer trust and perceived economic situation.

     

The Fair Trade Idea: Towards an Economics of Social Labels

The concept of Fair Trade is applied to the marketing of a variety of goods. In recent years it has met a continually increasing interest among consumers. Different Fair Trade organizations are trying to accomplish an improvement in working and living conditions in developing countries by means of Fair Trade certificates and by paying a price markedly above world market standard. This is meant to lead to the attainment of basic social standards, especially in agricultural production. The article deals with how Fair Trade works and whether the social aims can be achieved by the application of this trade concept. Our main result is that even though efficiency of redistribution through the Fair Trade institutions is lower than through traditional relief organizations, the Fair Trade concept provides an additional incentive to support better living conditions in the Third World. Moreover, it provides a stimulus for producers to reorganize the production process in a socially more acceptable manner even when this is not rewarded by the Fair Trade company.

Effect of Store Brand Introduction on Channel Price Leadership: An Empirical Investigation

In this study, we conduct an empirical investigation of the impact of store brand introductions on the price leadership relations in a distribution channel between a retailer and national brand manufacturers. We analyze a multi-product category retail database from a major grocery chain, which captures both a period before and a period after the introduction of a store brand in each product category. By applying the time series approach to this data set, we show that store brand introductions frequently lead to price leadership changes, generally in a more favorable direction for the retailer than for the national brand manufacturer, evidenced by either the decay of the manufacturers’ price leadership or the rise of the retailer’s price leadership. However, such a change is not universal but tends to be concentrated among a certain quality tier of national brands, which is not always the low-tier, but sometimes the top-tier despite the low-price low-quality position of the store brand. The patterns detected in the data suggest that these changes are likely to reflect the retailer’s strategic effort to reshape the price leadership environment in a product category aided by the enhanced bargaining power and managerial sophistication that accompanied the store brand introductions.     

Strategic Effects of Private Labels and Horizontal Integration

The present study examines whether women involved with career work have shopping attitudes and purchase participation preferences different from those of women involved in non-career work. It finds that career women do differ from their non-career counterparts with regard to several attitudes that have been related to shopping. The attitudinal changes associated with careers and the socioeconomic resources that accompany such work, however, appear to have only an indirect relationship to preference for mail/phone order buying methods. In addition, career status could not be linked to willingness to expand or contract the traditional areas of female purchase jurisdiction.     

Two-Tier Store Brands: The Benefic Impact of a Value Brand on Perceptions of a Premium Brand

A recent trend in the retail industry is the emergence of multi-tier store brands. In the current article, we contrast consumers’ expectations in a retailing context in which a single store brand is present to one in which two store brands are offered in the same category. We propose that when a retailer offers a single store brand, consumers expect it to be of lower quality even when it is described as a premium brand. On the other hand, quality perception of a premium store brand increases in the presence of a value store brand. Importantly, quality perceptions of a value store brand are not affected by the presence of a premium store brand. In two studies we find support for our hypotheses showing the benefic impact of a value store brand on quality perceptions of a premium store brand.     

Store brands and retail differentiation: the influence of store image and store brand attitude on store own brand perceptions

Store's own brands can provide important opportunities for retail differentiation if they are considered by consumers to be uniquely associated with store image. A survey of shoppers measured attitudes toward individual stores’ images and store brand perceptions, as well as general attitudes toward store brands. A regression analysis demonstrates a positive relationship between consumers’ perceptions of individual store own brands and their associated store's image dimensions and attitudes toward store brands in general.     

Innovation Cloning: The Introduction and Performance of Private Label Innovation Copycats

A controversial trend in grocery is the practice by retailers to quickly copy innovative national brands (NBs) launched by manufacturers with their own private label (PL). In a sample of 1,100+ NB pioneers launched in The Netherlands between 2005 and 2009, 11.7% faced a PL copycat by at least one of the seven leading grocery retailers. These copycats obtained an impressive 5.8% category share at the retailer in the year after launch, thereby outperforming the NB pioneers they copy (2.1%) as well as non-copycat PLs launched in the same period (4.4%). Using a two-step selection model, we identify what motivates retailers to copy NB innovations, and what factors drive subsequent copycat performance, thereby taking into account retailers’ innovation assortment decisions. As expected, retailers are more likely to copy successful NB innovations, and these copycats indeed perform well in their stores. However, retailers do not only take into account financial considerations. They are especially hesitant to copy heavily promoted NB innovations and those launched by manufacturers with a strong reputation. To enhance copycat performance, retailers should keep prices of the copycat sufficiently below those of the NB pioneer and limit its promotions. Apart from guiding retailers in their copycat decisions, also NB manufacturers can learn from this study how to discourage retailers from imitating their innovations.     

Private label usage and store loyalty: The moderating impact of shopping value

This study endeavours to develop and analyze a conceptual model that sheds light on the moderating impact of utilitarian and hedonic shopping values in determining the relationship between private label usage and store loyalty. In a test with data collected from 267 consumers, conceptual framework was analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that a negative relationship was observed between private label usage and store loyalty. However, utilitarian shopping value converts this existing negative relationship between private label usage and store loyalty into a strong positive association. This study offers such interesting implications for managers that developing marketing strategies oriented to create utilitarian shopping value during the shopping experience may enable retailers to enhance their store loyalty in a positive way in the long run. Prior research has not approached the private label product phenomenon from a shopping value perspective. Hence, this study attempts to measure the moderating impact of shopping value on the linkage between private label usage and store loyalty for the first time.     

The Arduous Journey of Private Labels: Insights From the South African Market and Further Afield

This article presents an overview of private label brands (PLBs) by considering both the status quo and emergent trends in this sphere. The initial focus is profiling private labels in the country of South Africa, with developments from abroad then being juxtaposed against the local retail landscape. Global market trends are brought to the fore at the end of the article. PLB adoption in South Africa currently sits at a paltry 18% (little moved in the last 5 years), compared with a European average penetration rate of 30%. The reasons for this lackluster growth are varied, with a lack of retailer R&D at the root cause. Yet the conditions are right for rapid growth of this merchandise should household incomes continue to remain under pressure and should consumers fully appreciate the value proposition of such brands. Furthermore, it is expected that the global share of the market will reach 50% by 2025 (double that presently) with retailers abandoning B-brands and replacing these with their own substitute PLBs.