Understanding Store Brands- Packaging Imitation and Consumer
A store brand can be defined as a sub-brand developed by a retailer for exclusive sales to customers. For example, supermarket stores often brand their products by their names, and even the packaging bears their names. Essentially, a store brand is a unique brand for a particular store. One particular manufacturer produces many products, but when they reach the retailers’ hands, the retailer rebrands them on their unique names (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Generally, store brands are offered lower prices than the national brand. One of the main reasons retailers report to store brands is to customize the products to make the customers think that the retailers manufactured the products (Quelch & Harding, 2016). Store branding also allows retailers to package or modify the products to meet the local customers’ needs.
Store brands often imitate the national brand packaging. One of the reasons attributed to the imitation is that the retailers strive to make the store brand products closely similar to the national brand to prevent customer confusion. When the store brand products look different from the national brand, customers may think they are substandard products (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Therefore, retailers ensure that store brands do not vary greatly from the national brands to maintain customers’ confidence in the store brands (Quelch & Harding, 2016). Moreover, retailers ensure that the store brands are almost similar to the national brands to keep the packaging standards identical to those of the national brands.
Despite the psychological effects of social media marketing, it is ethical for retailers to imitate national brands when making the store’s brands. It is more important for the store brands to be similar to the national brands because branding requires adhering to certain standards (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Therefore, making the store brands imitate the national brands is the best way to ensure standards. The manufacturers of the products that are being branded would not want their products to be over-modified before they reach the consumers (Quelch & Harding, 2016). Consequently, over-modifying the products may mean the retailers are against the manufacturers’ patent rights.
References
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). A framework for marketing management (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Quelch, J& Harding, D. (2016). Brands versus Private Labels: Fighting to Win. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/1996/01/brands-versus-private-labels-fighting-to-win
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Question 
What is a store brand, and why do many imitate national brand packaging? Consider the effects of social, marketing, situational, and psychological influences on consumer decision-making.
Understanding Store Brands- Packaging Imitation and Consumer
Is it ethical for a store brand to imitate the packaging of a national brand?