Motivational profiling of store brand shoppers: Differences across quality tiers

A recent trend characterizing the retail industry is the rapid growth of store brands; many retailers now manage a store brand portfolio that incorporates multiple value propositions, such as a generic, a standard, and a premium brand. Yet current literature has not investigated whether the motivations and benefits sought differ among consumers of national brands and those of different types of store brand. This study analyses the shopping expenditures and motivational characteristics of customers of two major chains in the Spanish retail industry. The positioning of store brands moderates the benefits sought by store brand shoppers, such that each brand attracts different customer segments. Moreover, the overlap between these segments tends to be lower than their overlap with segments of national brand buyers. Therefore, any reference to store brands as a whole appears overly simplistic; an adequately selected portfolio of store brands instead may help retailers steal purchases from national brands, without cannibalizing their own brands' sales. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015