For some time now, professionals and scholars in the large-scale retail sector have been debating the following question: Is the retailer’s brand a logical extension of the store brand, or does it have dignity as a brand in its own right? In other words, is the success of private labels in shopping trolleys – 30.3% of products in trolleys are private label – further proof of the connection between consumers and retailers, or does it demonstrate the substantial autonomy of private labels, which compete with ‘brands’ in their own right due to their unique characteristics and selling proposition?
The author’s company has been studying consumer attitudes for over a decade, and the answer to this question is more complex than it seems.
Let’s start by simplifying things. Firstly, we should stop assuming that private labels are perceived as ‘more affordable’. The data itself is not ‘wrong’; it is the question. Dozens of surveys tell us that a large percentage of consumers consider private labels to be ‘more affordable’ (the figures range from 70% to 90%). Why ask consumers if they think private labels are more affordable when this has been the value proposition since the beginning of private labels? Furthermore, we should stop asking consumers if they consider private labels to be a direct expression of the brand’s values. The consumer might reply, “Oh dear, of course I think my supermarket sells sustainable, affordable, genuine products, and so on and so forth, so the supermarket’s own-brand products have the same qualities“.
Let’s leave the early 2000s behind and think of private labels as brands in their own right. Then we can ask consumers the same questions we ask about big (or small) brands.
However, as intellectually honest researchers, we should acknowledge the first exception: the real big difference between private labels and brands is the categorical pervasiveness of private labels. While brands are historically confined to certain categories, such as dairy products, spreads and detergents, private labels cover many categories that are not directly related to each other. The same private label can be applied to a bottle of milk, a packet of frozen spinach and a set of kitchen sponges, for example.
Therefore, initially, private labels cannot sever their relationship with the brand because trust derives directly from the fact that they are ‘part of the brand’. However, this trust is growing.
Immediately after the outbreak of the pandemic, 29% of people said that they trusted a brand with the name of the supermarket they frequented. Today, in November 2025, that figure has risen to 39% (source: Eumetra, Well-being and Sustainability Observatory).
A real switch in consumer preferences or perceptions only occurs if certain beliefs are established. The first of these is whether private labels are fungible compared to better-known brands. Can I buy and consume private label butter that completely replaces branded butter? Can I buy and use private label baking paper that completely replaces branded baking paper? And is this because the perceived quality is the same or even higher?
An attentive reader might have doubts about this: it is one thing to ask these questions about everyday items such as butter, but quite another to do so for protected designation of origin (PDO) products such as Amarone della Valpolicella or French artisan butter. This is a legitimate doubt that we will address in future instalments of these articles, which are dedicated to private label products and consumer perception. In these articles, we will introduce both product categories and the differences between consumer segments.
31.4% of people believe that private label products can easily replace those of the best-known brands. Some people still have an outdated view of private labels as a value-for-money solution and might therefore think that this belief is more widespread among segments of the population with lower purchasing power.
However, nothing could be further from the truth: the percentage of people who consider branded products to be interchangeable rises to 61% and 67% among the two most affluent groups who are satisfied with their lives and circumstances, and falls to 30% among those living in precarious conditions (source: Eumetra Observatory on Wellbeing and Sustainability).
In other words, it is the most educated and affluent classes who consider private label products to be a valid substitute for branded products. Is this the result of private labels being presented in two different ways, either as low-cost/value for money or more premium? Or does it reflect the fact that, for the most vulnerable groups with fewer resources, certain products are a necessity, whereas the more affluent can afford the luxury of choice?