I’ve heard of this but don’t believe it at all. When I was growing up my family always got store brand food and drinks and even today I occasionally fall back to that and store brands are always very different from the actual brands. I’ve eaten so many store brand chips and they never taste anywhere near what the actual brands they’re imitating. I can believe actual brands will make special batches for store brands but they very obviously skimp on the ingredients since I have never had a store brand that was equivalent to an actual brand (note, there are actual store brands that are BETTER than actual brands but at the same time it’s obvious they’re aren’t just some other companies run-offs)
The OP’s question seems to have morphed into a discussion about private label products rather than what they were asking, which was whether manufacturers made cheaper “brand name” products for some retailers.
But that said:
@Asuka & T-bonham - sorry T, your comment that it’s “standard Industry practice” is not correct. In some cases that happens, but for the most part it does not.
In my 25+ year’s experience its very rare that retailer’s P/L is “identical” to big national brands. Usually they’re selling based on price point and a value proposition. They would say their products are “near” branded quality selling for less than a national brand, so a good value, (or in the case or Walmart - “Great”).
Like any sub-contracted product, a retailer specifies the level of quality they want and they get quoted a price. To make a branded quality product you usually need high quality, higher priced ingredients. That reduces their margins or raises their prices at shelf level, which often they don’t want.
The exception to this is a few retailers that have a “premium” P/L offering. In Canada, the best example is “President’s Choice” which is either better or the same as national brands. Walmart US had (has?) “Sam’s Choice” products. These were originally developed with a President’s Choice team from Loblaws Canada back in the 1980’s after WM saw the huge success of PC products in Canada.
Also, many National Brands won’t, as a straight up corporate policy, make any products other than their own. I did some consulting work a few years ago for very large international company that had ice cream brands. I was surprised to learn that their corporate policy was they never manufacture for anyone but themselves. Their product formulations ingredient costs and suppliers are a corporate secret - end of story.
I wonder if that’s true for CK underwear, though? I have several with the tags placed on the side instead of in the back…
I remember reading an article in a gun magazine years ago that said Walmart bought cheaper versions of name brand guns. In some cases, the difference was obvious, like a shotgun that came with a synthetic versus a wood stock or that lacked the replacement choke tubes. In other cases, the manufacturer would just cheapen out to maintain a price point. So the spec sheet might read exactly the same as the version available at the local gun store but the Walmart model might have lower quality bluing, uglier wood stocks, or crappier triggers. The magazine may have just been passing on an urban legend though.
On the other hand, my brother worked for a toy manufacturer that sold to Walmart and many other retailers. Walmart put relentless pressure on them to reduce costs, sell in exactly the shipment quantities and package style that Walmart wanted, and to have a generous return policy. I think they also had “most favored nation” clauses that meant Walmart was always guaranteed to receive the lowest price that was available to any other retailer. My brother’s company didn’t sell cheaper versions of their stuff to Walmart, they just had lower margins on those sales. At some point though, whether Walmart intended for this to happen or not, Walmart’s other suppliers might come up with the idea that since Walmart gets special packages and special orders at discounted prices, it’s just easier to sell them crappier goods in a name brand package with a slightly different model number and SKU. As a result, every other store might wind up selling a better version of the same item. As people above noted, retailer-specific model numbers to defeat price comparison is common. The same strategy would also work to push lower-quality products off onto more price-conscious consumers at lower-end retailers.
I’m checking with a friend who used to work for Remington. I’ll let you know what he tells me.
Yes and no - IIRC two reasons -
-Mainly they were victims of their management’s leveraged buy-out. Buy the company for cheap using other people’s money in the form of junk bonds, milk it like crazy, and then walk away from the mess. They could never hope for the level of revenue/profits to pay off those junk bonds.
-Their market changed. When Radio Shack started, they were a supply for electronics parts and such for hobbyists, and cheaper stereos when component stereos were high-cost snob items. With a name that included “shack” they never managed to move upscale, and their house brand already had negative connotations for quality. Today, hobby electronics is even more of a rarity than before, and nobody needs new tubes to replace the burned-out ones for their TV. Stereos are cheap, and there’s far more competition in mainstream electronics stores that are bigger and have more choices. Stereos are commodity items. Almost nobody buys components (Remember separate amp, equalizer, tuner, cassette deck, record player, then CD player? Today you just buy one box.) Originally selling their house brand over name brands eventually became a negative, just like computers.
Basically, the market was pulled out from under them, just like department stores; or camera stores; or book stores… Also bad management did not help things.
The way I had heard it described is the “own brand” products are made on the same production line as the “name brand” prodcuts.
However in a modern production line, a large part of the workforce is dedicated to quality assurance testing on the products being produced. The result of this is a quality assurance bell curve, going for lowest to highest quality. The name brand companies typically only accepting products at the high quality end of the curve. Rather than throw out the products further down the curve, most of which are still perfectly good, they are sold as "own brand’ products.
No cite for that, but heard it from people in the industry.
Every contractor I’ve hired has warned me away from home depot stuff, especially plumbing. And my plumber is not only a really honest guy who has worked for me for years, he also makes me buy all my fittings and stuff before he begins anything major (like new faucets) so I know he has no personal financial interest in where I buy the faucets.
I’m pretty sure “lower quality for big box stores” is a thing, at least for many products.
My buddy got back to me and said that Remington does not make different versions for different retailers, including Walmart. He doesn’t know about other makers.
He said that they introduced low-end models like the 770 to meet price points, but they don’t make different versions for different retailers.
I have heard that this isn’t true of stuff at Lowe’s and Home Depot, but I don’t know for sure.
This thread is a total shock for me-here I thought Home Depot for example (vs. Wal-Mart, where none of the above is absolutely any surprise) was the go-to place for hardware, selling stuff of the utmost quality. [/disillusioned, but wiser]
Thanks Orwell. Although the article I read didn’t identify the gunmaker, it seemed they could only have been talking about Remington or Winchester if not both of them. I’m inclined to believe now that the article was bullshit. I always thought it might be.
As far as Home Depot (Canada) goes, they definitely sell “de-spec’d” brand name products at times.
A few years ago I bought a DeWalt lithium cordless drill in a "Super Hot " pre-xmas special price. The drill was a great deal (I thought). The problem I found with it was that the keyless chuck was always dropping bits. This was to the point where every time I drilled, it dropped the bit or driver I was using. I hated using it, an exercise in frustration.
A few months later I was in the same HD store and it was “DeWalt Days”, they had a DeWalt rep demonstrating new tools. I took the opportunity to bitch about the drill dropping bits. He knew exactly the drill I was talking about and very matter-of-factly explained that it was a de-spec’d drill.
It has a low quality chuck from their cheapest Black and Decker drill and several other low end components. But, he said it’s a different model number than their main 18v cordless and also they made the paint on the drill handle different. I think mine has an all yellow handle and the “1st quality” drill is yellow and black. (I’ve since gotten rid of the drill).
I told him I thought it was a terrible idea that DeWalt was putting out cheap de-spec’d branded products. I said IMHO, DeWalt represented “quality” in all their products, he literally just shrugged. He said not everybody wanted it to do it, but it was done because HD wanted a hot price and DeWalt needed the sales.
Bottom line - do your homework. Also, I’ve never bought a DeWalt product since.
Really, that sort of bullshit is our fault, as in us the consumers. We all want a bargain (i.e., to get something for less), especially on an occasion like Black Friday, and so the manufacturers and retailers feed that hunger by offering cheap shit.
Agree we collectively bring it on ourselves by shopping price, price, PRICE, PRICE, then maaaybe a feature or two.
On a related note I was at HD the other day. Midweek around 11am. The store had six checkstands installed but only one cashier working. Plus the typical set of four self-serves monitored by one other cashier. Naturally, one of the four self-serves was broken.
Standing in the 6-deep and rapidly growing line to access the self-serves the guy ahead of me starts bitching “How come they don’t open more lines; don’t they want our money faster?” I said “As long as we’re willing to stand here wasting our time they still get the money before closing. Until we drop our baskets right here, walk out empty handed, and loudly tell the crowd we’re shopping elsewhere until they get enough cashiers it doesn’t cost *them *a dime to make *us *wait. Meantime they’re saving on cashier wages. We’re our own worst enemies. You and me both.”
He said “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that. But I don’t have time to drive farther or shop twice.” I said “They *did *think of that; we’re mostly trapped and they totally know it.”
Re: Home Depot cheaper equipment-I used to work for a lawn & garden equipment retailer. When Echo and Deere went into Depot, our managers and mechanics went down to check out the “identical” products, at least by model # that we sold. Their conclusion was more plastic, cheaper nuts and bolts among other things. And of course, our company was named as servicing/warranty dealer, which made no one happy
Didn’t your store get paid for warranty work from the manufacturers? I would think your store would have liked the extra service and warranty work, even if you didn’t get the sales.
I still think it’s foolish for trusted brands to do this. But it looks like it’s necessary to do now. I just looked on HD’s website, expecting to find cheap lawnmower brands like Yard Man or Murray, but most of the mowers are ostensibly prestige brands like John Deere, Cub Cadet, Honda, Toro, etc. Not sure about Poulan. So, obviously people want to own a Deere or Toro but don’t want to pay for a good one at the full-service dealers. So, what’s a brand to do?
I know a guy who worked at Shop Vac. They used to make all of their vacs in the US. But as Walmart, Lowes and HD started selling much cheaper vacs from other brands, Shop Vac started cheapening their products, and eventually started making at least some of the vacs and/or componets in China. In the end, they cheapened them so much the brand lots its prestige. Again, not sure what they could have done different without becoming a much smaller boutique vacuum brand (if that’s even possible).
Some of the info in the thread, like makers selling a special lower quality appliance (or gun, sort of an appliance 
) under their name at eg. Walmart is a little surprising. A company with a well known national brand introduces risk to it by lowering quality, especially selectively. If the whole brand just wants to move down market that’s one thing, they also save on every item made. Just having some lower quality stuff masquerading as the usual stuff, seems more risky. But we don’t shop much at Walmart. IME stuff at Costco is standard, could be exceptions. At Target I’ve seen case where eg. a toaster of a known brand is really cheap, but they aren’t really trying, it doesn’t seem, to pass it off as if it’s the standard model. The more expensive model is often right next to it.
However this point about Home Depot or Lowe’s is obvious IME. Whether or not it’s brand name, or a brand name you particularly recognize, lots of stuff there is definitely cheaper (price and quality) than what you get from say a plumbing supply place, the manufacturer directly, a specialty catalog/internet merchant and other supply channels. Or at the least such stuff is a choice at Lowes Depot. And in some product areas really good stuff is not a choice there. But there’s a very broad range of offerings in the whole market for many product types offered at such stores. Just because a tool say is not true professional grade doesn’t mean it’s junk. As was mentioned on another recent thread, even tools from Harbor Freight, where nobody is under the illusion they’re getting anything but ‘cheap, cheap, cheap’, can be adequate for my one or few time DIY use of a specialty tool.
Seems to me this issue can at times be insidious with look-a-likes, but often more of a basic ‘get what you pay for’ and a reasonably aware consumer knows they aren’t getting something for nothing.
Well, it does cost them something, because not everyone is willing to wait. My local Home Depot also has slow checkout. So I usually go to the local hardware store, because I know I can get in and out quickly, even if it will cost me slightly more. The hardware store has a guy by the door who will show me exactly where to look for my bolt or battery or spool of wire, too.
The OP’s not talking about house-brand products- those are common everywhere. What they’re talking about is say… Wal-Mart having a different set of cheaper/less feature-rich Mr. Coffee brand coffeemakers than the “standard” models sold in most other places.
I don’t know if the lesser quality is necessarily a thing, but I do know that they very often get “custom” part numbers and slightly different trim/features so that comparison shopping and things like competitor price matching won’t work. Let’s say that Wal Mart’s Mr. Coffee 12 cup coffeemaker is black with X, Y and Z features, and Target’s is substantially the same, but is black AND silver, and has X, Y and A features, where A is similar, but not quite the same as feature Z. For most practical intents and purposes, they’re the same damn coffeemaker, but for purposes of having to match each other’s prices or for strict comparison shopping, they’re far enough apart to make it impossible.
The lesser quality notion is probably more along the lines of somewhere like Home Depot recognizing that there’s a value-conscious segment of the population who would be interested in a DeWalt drill at a slightly higher than Ryobi price, even though the standard commercial quality DeWalt stuff is quite a bit more expensive. So they market a line of DeWalt stuff that’s made to consumer-grade specs, while still selling the commercial grade stuff as well. But people have this dumb-ass idea that because it’s consumer grade and priced accordingly, that it’s “lower quality”, when in fact they’re telegraphing that information through the price.
On the subject of brand name vs. store brand foods. Ralcorp, the former subsidiary of Ralston-Purina, sold off the Chex brand to General Mills which now makes those cereals. Bur Ralcorp still sells store brand cereals including “knock off” Chex cereals.
I.e., the original is the store brand, the name brand is the knock off.