Posted on 01/25/2019 3:30:52 AM PST by reaganaut1
Every grocery store has their house brands. They used to be more or less garbage, on the level with generic goods. Recent years have shown a significant improvement in “store brands” and many are as good as any name brand.
Anybody can go to a cannery and have their own brand name products produced. The cannery just changes the label from Del Monte to whatever.
Look for “Moovova’s Finest Canned Peaches” on the shelf next time you’re at the grocery store.
I worry more about Amazon producing knockoff products (with the original manufacturer’s permission, of course). I ordered a pair of Columbia hiking shoes...shoes I’ve purchase before and was familiar with. The new pair came in a plain brown box...not the typical Columbia powder-blue box. The tiptoe sole had separated on one shoe...the other just about to separate. A hugely obvious defect. I returned them and ordered a replacement at the same time. The next pair arrived perfect, blue box and all.
“Hasn’t any other retailer ever had a manufacturer develop a line for sale by its own chain?”
I buy the ‘Sure-Fine’ STORE Brand at my local grocery store. The canned goods are produced and packaged by Del Monte NATIONAL Brand.
They just fire up the line, load it with differently labeled store-brand cans, and the fill ‘em up! ;)
This is pretty much a non-story and has nothing to do with Amazon “flexing its muscle.” Just about every major retailer carries private-label products from companies who are known for their own brands. It’s just another sales channel - and often a very lucrative one.
Tires are a real common product that are private branded a LOT. But not as much as they used to be years ago. There are actually only about 8 tire manufacturers in the world who make them all no matter what the brand name is.
I bought something (I don't remember what) at a store that had 30 day after purchase price matching. I found the exact same thing at another store cheaper. I showed it to the store where I bought it. They said it didn't count as the model # was different. It turns out that the model number was exclusive to the store where I bought it. So there was really no price matching.
Costco and Home Depot are different, they post signs saying that higher shelves require associate assistance. Frys didn’t want to do that or couldn’t get away with it.
Also, the stocking shelves (the ones above the retail shelving at HD, Costco, etc) are usually crated and/or palletized objects so there’s a lot less likelihood that someone’s going to go up and try to get something down.
I refuse to buy anything from Amazon.
Home Depot lowered their shelves around 2002-2003. I think it was due to injuries or deaths caused by merchandise knocked over one side while being accessed from the other. But they are still quite tall as you say. I worked there part time and remember the crews coming in toward closing time.
I make a point of buying elsewhere than Amazon.
Your prerogative.
OTOH, DW and I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. It is the great equalizer. We can live in a rural community, where the lifestyle suits us, but still have the advantages of shopping in a store that has almost everything.
Bezos got rich. So what? Get over it. People have gotten rich for all of history. Somehow it never happened to my ancestors, but that is the same for almost everyone.
I save more by living in a place where real estate is reasonable than whatever the "Amazon tax" on stuff I buy online might be...
Trader Joe’s has done this for years. Most of the stuff they have that’s TJ brand is from somebody else, often a major brand. And Walmart pushes companies to make WM exclusives. You don’t have to be a monopoly (which none of these companies are) you just have to have a desired market share.
I’ve experienced that, too. Exact same, identical product but different manufacturer part number. I think they nailed me by denying a rebate request.
I bought two Seagate hard drives on Amazon. The merchant had a lot of complaints about counterfeit products, selling used as new, etc. I figured people were exaggerating and I gave it a try. Products arrived in electrostatic sealed bags. Even before opening the bags I could tell they were different weights and housing shapes. I sent a photo of the tags on the products to Seagate and they got right back to me: one was theirs, one wasn’t. I returned them and got a refund.
I complained to Amazon about the fraudulent merchant they were supporting. Their response? “Give them a bad review on Amazon.” I couldn’t believe it. Amazon fell quite a few notches for me after that fiasco.
Now I buy all drives in consumer packaging at Best Buy.
Some of this stuff comes directly from Amazon warehouses. They have to notice the counterfeit items. We have one locally...ordered a 33lb bag of Dr Hill’s SD dry dogfood today...will be here Sunday. My dogs said they hope it’s the real thing. I pay close attention to the packaging.
Of course, I understand the warehouses are real sweatshops, so the employees probably don’t give a rip.
Can’t wait until Amazon has their prescription drug service set up...(sarc). Amazon’s generic drugs will probably make CVS/Walgreens generics look as good as the original medications.
The way I understand it works is the merchants selling through Amazon stock their products at the Amazon warehouses for fulfillment. If the merchant says it is “Moovova Ultra” it gets stocked and shipped as such. The Amazon employees or robots grab whatever is in that location on the shelves, even if the merchant stocked counterfeit parts there. It isn’t realistic to expect the Amazon employees to police the authenticity of the products on the shelf.
What really hacks me off is that Amazon does not discipline or fire its merchants after repeated infractions and violations. Their stupid response was to “give the merchant a bad review.” There were already tons of bad reviews.
Good point about Amazon drug service. Based on my hard drive experience, I would never trust them to deliver high quality pharmaceuticals. They have a long way to go to recover my trust. We will stick with Walgreens (we are switching as I write from CVS even though CVS did a fantastic job for us).
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