Reinventing the Portuguese knitwear industry: the case of Pedrosa & Rodrigues private label management model

During the first decade of this century, the Portuguese knitwear industry, and textile cluster, were strongly affected by globalisation and seemed destined to decline. The Portuguese knitwear industry developed for decades a business model based on price as the main competitive factor, and that model was no longer able to support competitiveness against low wages countries. Portuguese knitwear industry made a dramatic change towards a competition based on value to the client. The companies adopted as primary differentiation drives technological innovation, design, fashion, and services customer-oriented, together with more presence on international fairs and exhibitions. The new strategy resulted in the significant growth of exports that reached 40% from 2009 to 2018. The restructuring of the cluster, however, changed it significantly, and the number of companies was reduced by almost 50%. The competitive change made the entire Portuguese textile cluster an international case study where the modern concept of private label business model is central. The business model of private label adopted by the most competitive knitwear companies considered a full package of services to international clients. It integrated the collection’s design, raw materials development, superior finishing, careful and cost-effective confection and sophisticated logistics. Pedrosa & Rodrigues, SA. is a midcap company from Barcelos County, North of Portugal, and is a highly successful example of the new competitive paradigms. This new model is now leading the Portuguese knitwear industry to a higher level in the value chain and gives it a strong reputation worldwide.

Trust transfer, price fairness and brand loyalty: the moderating influence of private label product type

PurposeThis study aims to examine the moderating role of private label product type (organic vs non-organic) on the relationships between trust transfer, price fairness, perceived value and brand loyalty.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data were gathered with the structured questionnaire from two groups of respondents who had previously purchased organic and conventional private label products. The direct, mediating and moderating effects were analysed with structural equation modelling.FindingsThe findings confirmed the trust transfer between the retail store and private label brand. The results revealed that both store trust and trust in private label brand positively influence price fairness and which, in turn, elicits higher perceived value. Perceived value was also found to influence private label brand loyalty. The multi-group analyses revealed that the magnitude of the trust transfer was accentuated by organic food private label. Furthermore, the relation between trust in private label brand, price fairness and perceived value was also greater in organic food private label.Originality/valueThis study utilized the trust transfer theory and equity theory as a theoretical foundation to provide novel insights into the moderating influence of private label product type on the relationships between the antecedents of private label brand loyalty. The results of the research can help retailers to develop successful private label brand marketing strategies.

Mediating Role of Perceived Value on the Relationship Among Perceived Risks, Perceived Quality, and Purchase Intention of Private Label Brands

In the current competitive retail market, retailers constantly strive to deliver products to consumers at a better value. Consumers are becoming more price sensitive but still seeking quality products. A retailer can establish value with a brand. Consequently, retailers are introducing their own private label brands (PLBs), which also differentiate their products from competitors. The role of perceived value in the purchase behavior of PLBs and its relationship with quality and various risk dimensions has received scant consideration in the retailing literature. Our study suggests perceived value is a mediating part in associations amid perceived quality, perceived risks, and purchase intention of PLBs. A structural equation modeling approach was adopted to test the proposed hypotheses with a convenience sample of 458 consumers of retail department stores obtained via a cross-sectional survey. The results demonstrate that the role of perceived value is vital in strengthening the association of consumer-perceived quality and purchase intention of PLBs as well as minimizing the consumer’s risks as they intend to buy PLBs. Overall, the study contributes to the emerging retail and consumer behavior literature regarding the role of perceived value in purchase intention of PLBs.

Going healthy: how product characteristics influence the sales impact of front-of-pack health symbols

Manufacturers increasingly adopt health symbols, which translate overall product healthiness into a single symbol, to communicate about the overall healthiness of their grocery products. This study examines how the performance implications of adding a front-of-pack health symbol to a product vary across products. We study the sales impact of a government-supported health symbol program in 29 packaged categories, using over four years of scanner data. The results indicate that health symbols are most impactful when they positively disconfirm pre-existing beliefs that a product is not among the healthiest products within the category. More specifically, we find that health symbols are more effective for (i) products with a front-of-pack taste claim, (ii) lower priced products, and (iii) private label products. Furthermore, these results are more pronounced in healthier categories than in unhealthier categories. Our findings imply that health symbols can help overcome lay beliefs among consumers regarding a product’s overall healthiness. As such, adding a health symbol provides easy-to-process information about product healthiness for the consumer and can increase product sales for the manufacturer.

The Effects of the Brazilian Economic Recession of 2014-2016 on the Default Credit Card and in Private Label Card in the Food Retail

This study explores the effects of the Brazilian recession from 2014 to 2016 on the default of market credit cards and Private Label cards in food retail in a comparative way, through econometric analysis. The research evaluates the credit card default response in the market and, also, Private Label cards, after simulating shocks in macroeconomic variables such as Gross Domestic Product, wages, and unemployment rate, among others, through the application of an autoregressive vector model (VAR model). The data, on a monthly basis, were collected at the Central Bank of Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and at a company in the private label card market. In addition, precedence tests are applied in order to check if there was any causality “in the sense of Granger” on the default of the market credit card and the Private Label card. Among the results found, it was possible to identify that the default rates of the credit card in the market and of the Private Label have different behaviors, from the simulations of the impulse response functions to the identification of the variables that precede them, being that the default of the Private Label card preceded a higher number of variables when compared to the default of credit cards in the market.