A comparison between economic and organic store brands

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to tackle the issue of store brand equity by considering two store brand's positioning strategies: those with high perceived added value (the organic store brands), as opposed to economic brands. It takes place in the current environmental considerations showing the important role played by the packaging in determining the store brand equity.Design/methodology/approachA PLS Path model divided into four sub-models enables the authors to make specific predictions about customers' purchase intentions. It also provides a concise operational calculation of the brand equity of each studied store brand.FindingsResults show that economic brands build their equity with reinforced packaging, and organic brands maximise their brand equity by using simple packaging. In general, reinforced packaging improves the perceived quality of economic store brands but destroys that of organic brands. The calculations of overall equity scores for each studied store brand reveal that economic brands could benefit from further development whilst organic brands already maximise their equity.Practical implicationsResults will enable large retailers to develop effective campaigns focussing on perceived quality and more specifically by designing packaging that are suitable for the positioning of their brands – a simple packaging for organic brands and a reinforced packaging for economic brands to maximise customers' value.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies to deepen the store brand equity, comparing two contrasting types of brands, by studying specifically variations of the levels of customers' perceived quality depending of two types of packaging.