Online Distribution Strategies

The growing importance of online channels, social media, and mobile commerce (m-commerce) has given rise to new retail formats, that use only channel used and which have enabled many new consumers to access certain establishments despite geographical barriers. The fashion sector may be one of the most heavily affected by these developments, due to the highly seasonal nature of the products, keen competitive rivalry, widespread reliance on outsourcing, high brand power variety of pricing policies, and strong emotional implications for consumers, who identify with specific brands. This chapter aims at analyzing the main strategies that retail operators are currently following in the industry in order to differentiate from other retailers. A special interest will be placed on the role of the brand, examining how retailers in the industry use private labels as a differentiation resource. The authors also review the case of ASOS, a global retailer which has proven able to adapt to every market, with a view to determining how it has dealt with the myriad challenges involved

Generic Drugs in the Pharmaceutical Market

Over the past three decades, marketing has increased its interest in studying the role of generic products in the pharmaceutical sector, one that has only recently incorporated the concept of “generic” products, compared to others such as the mass market. Since the emergence of generic products as one of national brands' main competitors, these have shown significant growth in both their market share, as well as in new product categories. Initially, the concept of generic products was limited to categories of packaged foods and later extended to categories such as medicine. Pharmaceutical market presents an opportunity to analyze the expansion of the “generic” concept, in a strongly regulated framework. In Europe, different policies have resulted in a varying development of generic market shares. Today, the sustainability of health system is a matter of increasing concern to European governments. Generic drugs offer an opportunity to contain pharmaceutical expenditures, since generic price are lower than their original brand equivalent. Developing this market is the main objective.

The Role of Private Labels in the Organic Food Market

The organic food market has become one of the most rapidly growing sectors in developed economies around the world in the last decade, but it has not grown at the same pace in all the countries. The review of literature clearly indicates that the main motivations of the Spanish consumer to buy organic food are Health, Taste and Quality; also reveals that the main barriers are related to Price and Availability. The organic Store Brand appears as an opportunity for retailers to overcome those barriers, the price gap and the lack of availability. This study investigates the role of Store Brands in the development of the organic food product category. The authors provide a comprehensive picture of the current status in the Spanish distribution channels and review some PL strategies for the retailers to develop the category in different marketing areas such as branding, labelling, pricing, merchandising and promotion.

Private Label Sales through Catalogs with Augmented Reality

New technologies have changed the way today's own label products are being offered. Today the Internet and even more the so-called social networks have played key roles in dispersing any particular product in a more efficient and dynamic sense. Also, having a smartphone and a wireless high-speed network are no longer a luxury or a temporary fad, but rather a necessity for the new generations. These technological advances and new marketing trends have not gone unnoticed by the medium and large stores. The augmented reality applied to interactive catalogs is a new technology that supports the adding of virtual reality to a real environment which in turn makes it a tool for discovering new uses, forms, and in this case, spending habits. The challenge for companies with their private labels in achieving their business objectives, is providing customers with products and services of the highest quality, thus promoting the efficient and streamlined use of all resources that are accounted for and at the same time promoting the use of new information technologies as a strategic competitive.

Brand Equity of Store Brands and Its Effect on Customer Value

This chapter develops a comprehensive analysis of the self-perception of value that the customer brings to the different retail chains present in the Spanish consumer goods retail sector. The authors incorporate a metric to determine the value that costumers have for the retail chains included in the study, and the brand equity of their store brands. The value supplied by their customers is defined as the perception of their loyal behavior and profitability on a long-term context. The measurement of this concept is based on personal judgments on repurchase intention and recommendation at present (named actual value), as well as their intention to acquire different products and brands sold by the company in the future (named potential value). Also, the chapter develops an analysis of the components that generate the brand equity of private label brands and their contribution to building customer value for the chains.

Private Label Management

The aim of this paper is to review empirical and theoretical academic research about Private Label products (PLs) and to suggest directions for future research. The review focuses on the period of greatest scientific output (2000-2014) and consults all the international publications on marketing ranked by the Academic Journal Quality Guide. This work has yielded a large selection of articles (270) on PL. The paper's summary of PL research permit a better understanding of the nature of PL and suggests themes for future research. Emerging areas of research were found to be: consumer perceptions of PL and their related behaviour; price and price promotion; channel relationships and quality; with innovation, segmentation and shelf space the least frequently studied. Most studies used analysed consumer data to focus on the grocery sector data. Finally, the study identifies gaps (such as the lack of focus on private label services) and suggests directions for future PL research.

Importance and Role of Retail Brands in a Non-Food Market

Non-food vendors struggle to reduce customers churn when these shop for consumer goods: From simple coupons to sophisticated big-data-based loyalty systems, modern merchants undertake a range of initiatives to maintain customer loyalty to their stores. At the same time, while consensus exists on the fact that retail brands have the ability to generate store loyalty, this fact has seldom been empirically corroborated. Probably due to this lack of certainty, many non-food retailers use “private label” product strategies as a way to preserve healthy business ratios, such as revenue, contribution margin, operating profit, etc., far from the idea of developing customer loyalty to the store. This constitutes the main objective of our work: To prove the existence of a statistic correlation between Consumers' loyal attitudes and behaviors towards “private labels” and their loyalty towards The Store Brand Name that sponsors these brands.

The Impact of Consumer Values and Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on the Attitude towards Genetically Modified Food

This study aimed to provide food retailers with suggestions useful to design effective private brands. To this end, it addressed the topic of GM food, which is still a highly controversial issue, especially in Italy. The study tested, in particular, a research framework hypothesizing that consumer attitudes towards store-branded GM foods are affected by their values and perceptions about the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of retailers selling these products. A survey conducted on a sample of 260 Italian consumers, revealed that: self-transcending values (benevolence, nature protection) drive consumers to believe that GM food retailers are committed to economic CSR; conservative values (traditions, security) drive consumers to believe that GM food retailers are committed to legal CSR; perceived legal and philanthropic CSR favorably affect consumer attitudes towards store-branded GM foods. The study discusses these results and highlights their practical relevance for the private branding strategies of food retailers.

Assortment Size and PL Penetration in Grocery Retailers' Portfolios during Economic Crisis

The economic crisis in Spain has had a major impact on the evolution of retail assortments in food base. On the one hand, it has caused alterations in assorted sizes, as well as in the distribution between NB and PL. On the other hand, it has changed the buying behaviour of consumers seeking brands that offer confidence, but at very competitive prices. The purpose of this chapter is to answer the following questions: How has the economic crisis changed the assortment size in different categories of products in Spanish groceries? In which way has the assortment composition of retailers been altered? Do all the retail formats have the same behaviour in assortment management and PL? The authors argue that there has been an increase in the average size of assortment for all the product categories with the exception of products of fill-ins, and the only two retail formats that have increased the weight of the PL in their assortments are large and medium-sized supermarkets.

Private Label in the Tourism Industry

Tour operators and travel agencies who produce and sell tourism products under their own labels represent key players among the multiple intermediaries that exist in the tourism industry. This chapter aims to study the direct and indirect effects that the economic crisis has had on these private labels. The economic crisis had a moderate effect on tourism, but it also accelerated a number of changes that had been occurring in the sector. Through the study of the current situation and the one produced in recent years, this chapter develops a series of recommendations for traditional private labels to maintain their income and market position. We ascertained, in particular, that the new information and communications technology has led to a different market situation for tour operators and travel agency labels, which may disclose new opportunities in the process of differentiation and the creation of a competitive advantage.