Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., like most large retail and grocery chains, offers store brands, commonly referred to as house brands or generic brands, which are low-priced alternatives to name brand products. Wal-Mart has numerous store brands, each catering to a different consumer need or desire. Almost all products offered under Wal-Mart brands are private label products, and can be found in almost every category at Wal-Mart.
Contents |
Major names
Sam's Choice
Sam's Choice, originally introduced as Sam's American Choice in 1991, is premium retail brand in food and selected hard goods. Named for Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, Sam's Choice forms the premium tier of Wal-Mart's two-tiered core corporate grocery branding strategy that also includes the larger Great Value brand of discount-priced staple items.
Compared to Great Value products and to other national brands, Sam's Choice is positioned as a premium retail brand and is offered at a price competitive with standard national brands. It typically offers either superior quality or unique products in a given product category, or items in categories where the market leader is an "icon" (for example Coca-Cola in soft drinks).
Most Sam's Choice beverage products (excluding Grapette and Orangette) are manufactured for Wal-Mart by Cott Beverages. Other products in the line, including cookies, snack items, frozen meals, and similar grocery items are made by a variety of agricultrual and food manufacturers,
Competitive pricing of the Sam's Choice brand and store branded and generic goods is possible because of the minimal expense required to market a retail chain's house brand, compared to advertising and promotional expenses typically incurred by the national brands.
Other brands
Apparel
- Athletic Works is a brand for athletic clothing, such as gym shorts. The brand is also used for sports equipment and timepieces (watches).
- Faded Glory is a brand for classic Americana clothing and shoes.
- Kid Connection is a brand used for a variety of products targeted for children, including toys and clothing.
- Life is a brand of men's underwear styled by Jockey. The range includes briefs, boxers, boxer-briefs, trunks, thongs, bikini briefs, and undershirts. Formerly, the "Life" brand included women's underwear, but was discontinued in 2002 along with Target's formfit brand, also made by Jockey International.
- Metro 7 is Wal-Mart's newest brand of women's apparel, that was released in the fall of 2006.
- No Boundaries, abbreviated on its labels as NoBo, is a line of apparel and home furnishings targeted at teenagers and young college students. The line uses trendy colors and designs on products ranging from hats to lamps to beanbag chairs.
- Puritan is a brand for basic clothing including tee shirts, undergarments, socks, and others. Puritan also includes eyeglass frames in Wal-Mart's eyeglass department.
- Simply Basic features family-oriented and Beauty department. These products to some extent correspond to products already under the Equate brand, but are priced lower.
- l.e.i. (Life.Energy.Intelligence.) is a brand consisting of mostly girls' jeans.
Homelines
- Get It Together products include furniture and housewares items.
- HomeTrends products include large and small furniture, small appliances, and home office products.
- Mainstays products include curtains, bedding, some small home furnishings, and various other products, including office supplies.
- Canopy is a new home product line that debuted in 2008 that features "timeless" coordinated solutions for rooms - living, dining, bed, bath, home office, and other domestic goods. The Canopy brand is Wal-Mart's response to declining sales in home categories, hoping to revitalize its image of providing low-maintenance, long-lasting products at a low price.
Hardlines
- Color Place is the brand used for paint.
- Durabrand is the name used for home electronics such as televisions, CD players, surround sound systems, and even blank recordable media (VHS, CD-R and DVD-R). The Durabrand name is also used on some small appliances.
- Equate is a brand used for consumable pharmacy and health and beauty items, such as shaving cream, skin lotion, over-the-counter medications, and pregnancy tests. Before its takeover by Wal-Mart, the formerly independent Equate brand sold consumer products at both Target and Wal-Mart at lower prices than those of name brands. Equate is an example of the strength of Wal-Mart's private label store brand. In a 2006 study, The Hartman Group marketing research firm issued a report which found that "Five of the top 10 "likely to purchase" private label brands are managed by Wal-Mart including: Great Value, Equate, Sam's Choice, Wal-Mart and Member's Mark (Sam's Club), per the study." The report further noted that "...we are struck by the magnitude of mind-share Wal-Mart appears to hold in shoppers' minds when it comes to awareness of private label brands and retailers." [1]
- EverStart is the brand for automotive and lawn mower batteries. The brand is also used for battery related accessories, such as jumper cables.
- Christmas Time'Formally Holiday Time' is used for Christmas items such as Christmas tree decorations, wrapping paper, and cards.
- ilo is another brand used for electronics. It is used for LCD TVs, LCD monitors, DVD players/recorders, and MP3 players.
- Kid Connection is used for toys.
- Ol' Roy is a brand of dog food, named after Sam Walton's bird dog. Ol' Roy brand is another example of the success of private label store brands at the expense of traditional ad-driven brands, and has become the number-one selling brand of dog food in the United States, surpassing Nestle's Purina.[2] According to the brand manager of a competing product, "Wal-Mart has made a national brand out of Ol' Roy. Nutritionally, it's substantially the same as national brands at significantly less cost."[3]
- Ozark Trail is a brand used for outdoor equipment.
- ReliOn describes itself as "Wal-Mart's healthcare brand." It consists chiefly of medical equipment in the following categories: blood pressure monitoring, diabetes monitoring, and cough and cold-related products (such as humidifiers and thermometers).
- Spring Valley is the brand for vitamins and other nutritional supplements.
- Special Kitty is a brand of cat food and litter.
- SuperTech is Wal-Mart's brand of motor oil that is found in the automotive departments. The brand is also offered at those locations that have a Tire and Lube Express. The SuperTech name is also used on other consumable automotive products, including oil filters, windshield wiper fluid, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, and brake fluid.
References
- ^ Reyes, Sonia. "Study: Wal-Mart Private Brands Are Catching On." Brandweek. August 21, 2006. Retrieved on August 23, 2006.
- ^ Boyle, Matthew. "Brand Killers Store brands aren't for losers anymore.." Fortune. August 11, 2003. Retrieved on August 23, 2006.
- ^ Staff Writer"Private label chows unleash strong pet department sales." Discount Store News. June 7, 1993. Retrieved on August 23, 2006.
External links
|
||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
