Consumers ’Choice towards Private Label Brands: An Empirical Study

The contemporary retail industry has seen the exponential growth of private label brands (PLBs), especially among non-durable consumer goods. However, in developing countries like India, markets for Private label brands are in a beginning stage due to still perceived risk, trust and status que about the purchasing of private label brands. This research seeks to provide an understanding of the predictors of PLBs which influence the choice of consumers towards the private label brands. The primary data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire. A total of 200 questionnaires were circulated out of which 180 were received back but only 160 were found useful. The analysis was performed by linear regression modeling. Results obtained shows that the quality of PLBs is the most important factors which influence the consumer's choice towards PLBs. Other important predictors in descending order are packaging & labeling, availability, satisfaction and value of money respectively. Consumer's choice of purchasing PLBs is influenced by the benefit resulting from price and perceived quality, which is found to be significant. Based on results of the study, it is recommended that retailers should consider taking several initiatives in order to encourage the PLBs consumption among India such as providing more information about the value of money. Improvement in the packaging and labeling of the products, good characteristics of the contents and ingredient would also induce the purchase of the PLBs.