What would be your output on this situation?

Question

My mom and I were debating about prices at a certain grocery store (Publix). She figured it was absolutely wrong for Publix to sell their own brand of items nearly $2.00 cheaper than the name brand items. I'm not sure if this would pretain to all Publix shopping centers, but it's a couple in general we were referring to. She thought Publix was selling their items so cheap so that consumer's would buy their items so that Publix could pocket most of the money. I could remember when the name brand items were no more than about $.50 more expensive than the generic brand. Should something like this be brough to the attention of different news broadcast stations to investigate?

Answer 1

I believe the grocery store brand can sell their own products in their store for their own price. It is up to the consumer whether you want to buy the generic brand or the stores product. I also face the same obstacles at grocery stores or pharmacy stores and just stick to the generic brands to save time choosing between the two, unless you want to save money; it's all up to you.

Answer 2

Depends how you look at it.

"Branding" (advertising), and Packaging are the most expensive thing in a product.

There are other considerations in pricing a manufactured product.

Export v.s. Import

Supply & Demand

Volume

But over all

"Private Label ( store brands), Goods'' are generally a  lower cost, due to packaging and volume.

When a retailer is selling Private Label''  the product is either Purchased directly from a manufacture at higher volume, lower cost. - ( volume commitment is determined by the manufacture in exchange for a lower cost <same manufacture that has a ''Brand lable'' on similar product, on same shelf >

-Or - sometimes ( this is rare these day - too much risk ) the Retailer owns the factory, resulting in lower costs - no middle man- Direct pass thru to the consumer

  This allows the costs to remain lower, giving a higher margin to the retailer, which passes the price onto the consumer,(you).,resulting in a lower retail.

Other considerations in defense of some of the retailers, with the costs of rising real estate, wages, insurance, energy, they do need to stay in business.-no I am not a retailer-

-.

It is a consumers market and free trade is what it is about.

You can always Boycott if you don't like it.

Personally I still prefer most Brand products, and am willing to pay the higher price( I like the packaging and commercials too).

Answer 3

Wow. That's an interesting way of looking at economics. Your mom thinks they're LOWERING their prices so they can pocket MORE money?

So if the generic item cost only 50 cents less than the brand name instead of $2.00 less, you think the store would make LESS money on it?

Please don't call the media. They'll just laugh. What you describe is a complete misunderstanding of the basic points of product pricing -- and the main point to keep in mind is that a store can charge whatever price it wants to for its products, regardless of how that compares to how things used to be, and whether they charge a lot less or the same or a lot more for their own brand of product than they do for national brands. It's their store. They set the prices.

Personally, I think it's great that they sell their store brand stuff for so much less. It allows people without too much money to still be able to put a decent meal on the table.