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In these times of economic crisis and decreasing purchasing power, own-brand products are coming into their own.
While premium brands continue to serve as a reference for consumers, own-brand products now form an integral part of French consumer behaviour, albeit in different respects. 98% of French consumers have purchased store-brand products at some point (82% often buy these products). The most successful own-brand products are food items, where the range of products is more varied. 87% of French consumers buy retailer-brand food products. Own-brand household products, stationery and clothing are also popular with French consumers.
Perception of the added value of own-brand products.
For three quarters of French consumers, store-brand products are above all perceived as being great value for money. 41% of consumers also recognise that these products are of good quality. More surprisingly, 25% of the population chose “made principally in France” to describe retailer-brand products. This impression is expressed even more strongly when it comes to food items, as 33% of French consumers believe them to be produced in France. If we add this point of view to the importance of products that are “Made in France” and the concept of “buying local” in French consumers’ minds, then own-brand products should really be capitalising on this image. However, innovation is not considered to be a strong point of store-brand products, in any of the product categories. Only 15% of French consumers think that own-brand products are innovative.
Possibilities for growth
The success of own-brand products is here to stay. Only 9% of the French population envisage decreasing their purchases of store-brand products (more with regard to clothing and shoes – 14% - than any other sector). If we’ve seen the end of the own-brand boom, it’s fair to say that there’s still plenty of room for growth with a 22% increase in intention to purchase. This is particularly true when it comes to own-brand food items (29% of intentions to purchase compared with only 6% of consumers who have no intention to purchase store-brand food items).
Given that periods of economic crisis encourage consumers to seek out the best value for money, we are led to believe that own-brand products will continue to achieve good results, in the face of competition from premium brands. It’s interesting to note that this study was also carried out in parallel in Spain, where 50% of Spanish consumers intend to increase the proportion of own-brand goods in their shopping trolleys in the near future…
This study was carried out between August 27th and September 2nd 2013 via our FlashFacts omnibus survey and on our online access panel. The sample included 1009 respondents, representative of the French population by gender, age, region and socio-professional category respecting the method of quotas from the ages of 18 to 65.
