The story of private brands begins in Great Britain in 1928, when Marks & Spencer launched their private brand St Michael. In Sweden, the first private brand was developed during the 1920’s; a coffee named Prinsess Kaffe produced for ICA. Until 1980, private brands were just a cheap alternative to manufacturer owned brands. During the years, it gained more and more market shares. Because of the introduction of private brands, the retailers have gained an increased power over manufacturers and they now also have to handle the competition between manufacturer brands, private brands and customer’s demand. In the Swedish every day commodity trade, private brands represent ap-proximately 15% of the total assortment. A problem that has arose concerning the competition during the latest years, is that the trade constantly increases in the direction of effort on private brands. Private brands are one way for the supermarket chains and the retailers to increase their power over the shelf space, marketing and price setting. Due to the increased competition concerning the shelf space in the stores, the authors found it interesting to investigate how private brands are dealt with. The authors made the research from the retailer’s perspective and their view of private brands and how they compete. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how private brands are regarded and dealt with, according to the retailer. This study is accomplished with a qualitative method. The authors wanted to gain a deeper understanding for how the private brands influence and compete with manufacturer brands. The authors chose to do a descriptive study since it was in line with the qualitative approach that was used. Fur-ther on, the authors used the basic qualitative research which refers to that data is collected through interviews and observations. Eight retailers were interviewed from ICA, Axfood and Coop. The result of this study gives an explanation of how private brands are dealt with. Private brands receive premium shelf space in the store, but in the end it is up to the customer to decide upon the future of private brands. Dem-onstrations are the most common way to promote the private brands in stores. In the future the retailers claim that private brands will be developed into both niche products as well as low price products.

<p>The story of private brands begins in Great Britain in 1928, when Marks & Spencer launched their private brand St Michael. In Sweden, the first private brand was developed during the 1920’s; a coffee named Prinsess Kaffe produced for ICA. Until 1980, private brands were just a cheap alternative to manufacturer owned brands. During the years, it gained more and more market shares. Because of the introduction of private brands, the retailers have gained an increased power over manufacturers and they now also have to handle the competition between manufacturer brands, private brands and customer’s demand.</p><p>In the Swedish every day commodity trade, private brands represent ap-proximately 15% of the total assortment. A problem that has arose concerning the competition during the latest years, is that the trade constantly increases in the direction of effort on private brands. Private brands are one way for the supermarket chains and the retailers to increase their power over the shelf space, marketing and price setting. Due to the increased competition concerning the shelf space in the stores, the authors found it interesting to investigate how private brands are dealt with. The authors made the research from the retailer’s perspective and their view of private brands and how they compete.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how private brands are regarded and dealt with, according to the retailer.</p><p>This study is accomplished with a qualitative method. The authors wanted to gain a deeper understanding for how the private brands influence and compete with manufacturer brands. The authors chose to do a descriptive study since it was in line with the qualitative approach that was used. Fur-ther on, the authors used the basic qualitative research which refers to that data is collected through interviews and observations. Eight retailers were interviewed from ICA, Axfood and Coop.</p><p>The result of this study gives an explanation of how private brands are dealt with. Private brands receive premium shelf space in the store, but in the end it is up to the customer to decide upon the future of private brands. Dem-onstrations are the most common way to promote the private brands in stores. In the future the retailers claim that private brands will be developed into both niche products as well as low price products.</p>

Date: May 30, 2011 Program: MIMA – International Marketing Course name: Master Thesis (EFO 705) Title: Consumer behavior towards private label brands: A study of  Thai undergraduate students' experience Method: Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Quantitative method was used to collect the primary data for this research. Moreover, qualitative method was also used to support the results from questionnaires. Conclusion: The research attempts to examine the different factors that influence consumers' purchasing intentions of private label brands among Thai undergraduate students. Five important factors were identified; there are collectivist culture, perceived risk, price, quality and store loyalty. Collectivist culture and perceived risk were found out to be important background factors which affect the other three factors. Furthermore, the result shows that price and quality of private label brands are highly related as most of the target consumers tend to associate expensiveness with high quality and vice-versa. However, the effect of store loyalty on consumers' (Thai undergraduate students)purchasing intention was found out to be insignificant.

Pagrindinis darbo tikslas yra išanalizuoti privačių ženklų keliamas grėsmes gamintojų ženklams ir atlikus tyrimą aprašyti galimus grėsmių sušvelninimo metodus. Darbas yra sudarytas iš trijų dalių: teorinė analizė, situacijos analizė ir projektinių sprendimų. Privačių prekių ženklų produktai, tai produktai, kurie parduodami tik tuose prekybos tinkluose, kuriems šie prekių ženklai priklauso. Juos kontroliuoja mažmenininkai, kurie turi išskirtines teises į šiuos prekių ženklus. Ilgą laiką privatūs ženklai buvo asocijuojami su maža kaina ir prasta kokybe, bet šiame darbe atliktas tyrimas parodė, kad privačių ženklų produkcija ir jų kokybė yra gana teigiamai vertinama . Šio reiškinio pasekmė yra nauja ir daug sudėtingesnė bei kelianti vis didesnes grėsmes gamintojų ženklams. Trečioje dalyje bus pateikti metodai , kaip būtų galima sušvelninti keliamas privačių ženklų grėsmes. / The main aim of the work is analyzing threats that private labels pose to manufacturer brands and, upon the completion of a research, describing methods of mitigating these threats. The work consists of three parts i.e. theoretical analysis, situational analysis and project solutions. Private label products are the products which are sold in stores of retail networks which own these private labels. They are controlled by retailers which have executive rights for these private labels. For a significant period of time private labels were associated with low price and low quality, but the research carried out in this work demonstrates that private label products and their quality are evaluated quite positively. The outcome of this phenomenon is new and more complex as well as posing growing threats to manufacturer brands. The third part presents methods of mitigating the threats which private labels pose.