For many consumer packaged-goods companies, there’s no point fighting it. The Schick brand has been around for 100 years. Schick revolutionized shaving with injector razors and multiblades in a single cartridge, slugging it out in the marketplace for decades with rival shaving giant Gillette.
But today, Schick’s owner, Edgewell Personal Care, makes razors not only under the Schick name but for Walmart’s Equate private-label brand and Target’s Up & Up line. Those products might appear to compete with one another. But while the different razors are often manufactured in the same factory, different technology, parts and production lines are used, according to Edgewell CEO Rod Little.
Moreover, Edgewell is currently consolidating four manufacturing plants across its Americas region into one megasite making the various razors. Little told MarketWatch he didn’t believe his company’s Schick-branded products were undermined by the shaving products it makes for Walmart and Target . Private-label products, which are made by contracted manufacturers for retailers that sell them in stores under their own names and logos, are steadily extending their reach into the consumer packaged-goods market.
U.S. retailers’ private-label brands, like Costco’s Kirkland and Walmart’s Great Value, are now serious competitive threats to Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and other household-staples stalwarts, industry experts say. Retailers keep investing in producing higher-quality goods, which helped private-label products generate sales in the U.S. of around $245 billion last year, according to data from market research firm Circana, up from $184 billion in 2020. Don’t Short Yourself offers weekly money tips to help you earn it, stack it and grow it.
I would like to receive updates and special offers from Dow Jones and affiliates. I can unsubscribe at any time. Roughly one in five products that Americans buy on retail-store shelves today is a private-label product, Circana data show.
These private-label products, which are generally cheaper than national brands like Tide and Doritos, have made it easier for consumers to keep spending as prices for basics rise, propping up economic growth. As more shoppers buy the store brands, the balance of power between retailers and manufacturers keeps shifting in the retailers’ favor, analysts say. > Private-label competition has strengthened in ‘pretty much all of our categories’ over the past year. Both paths come with potential pain for established brands.
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