Use Premium House Brands to Brag Green

Many retailers adopt environmentally-friendly practices in hopes of achieving business advantages. But going green will lead to misunderstandings with your customers if you expect too much from them. Your shoppers want to look and feel environmentally conscientious. Still, when it comes down to it, they prefer the appearance over the sacrifice necessary to truly do the deeds.
     So give them the store appearance. Researchers at Catholic University of Pusan and Pusan National University found that in-store visual merchandising themed around eco-friendliness increases positive attitudes toward the retailer. The mechanism behind the effect is shoppers’ better feelings about themselves and more confidence in how people around them in the store will judge them.
     A particularly influential channel for accomplishing this is the private label, house brand items you carry. More specifically, the premium versions of those house brands. Researchers at Concordia University evaluated the effects of the retailer’s attention to social and environmental issues on attitudes toward a range of products on store shelves. The outcome was that the attention was most helpful with private label brands which shoppers considered as being of high quality. The cue for high quality was most often a relatively high price.
     Consumers think differently about private label, house brands than national label brands. Researchers at Monash University explored the situation in which a retailer introduces a value version of a house brand to add to a premium version on the shelves. Here’s what happens:

• Prior to introduction of the value version, the premium version is likely to be considered by consumers to be of standard, not premium, quality. 
• After introduction of the value version, consumers’ quality assessments of the premium version increase. 
• If a premium version is introduced to an existing value version, the assessment of the value version doesn’t change noticeably. 
• Consumers’ perceptions of product quality vary directly with the price they expect to pay for the house branded item. 

     On the other hand, researchers at Miami University and France’s ESSEC Business School found that addition on store shelves of a value version to a premium version of a national label product leads to lower quality ratings of the premium version. Examples included the introduction by Charmin of a lower-quality Charmin Basic product and Foster’s Beer producing a lower-quality Foster’s Grog.
     Why the difference between house brands and national label brands? Much of it is due to heavy manufacturer advertising for the nationals.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more: 
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Go for Greed over Green
Raise Prestige of House Brand Premium Label
Finesse Profit Margins on House Brands