Determining the Influence of Private Labels on Sales of National Brands: A Qualitative Approach

Private-label brands (PLBs) are spreading their operations in all product categories and have marked their presence in almost all types of retail formats. They are posing stringent competition to national brands (NBs), be it offline (organized and unorganized) retail or online retail. Besides being favourites of value-conscious Indian consumers, PLBs are becoming a key focus of channel partners as well. In this context, the present research article is aimed at providing insights about how PLBs are able to garner the profit-centric interests of channel partners and how they are affecting the distribution of NBs in the unorganized retail sector. The study is based on information collected through semi-structured interviews with distributors and retailers from Haryana and Punjab. A thematic analysis was performed to draw meaningful inferences from the responses collected through the semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that channel partners' interest in the high margins of private labels and their interest in maintaining long-term relationships with the latter make NBs vulnerable on parameters such as sales effort investment, in-store visibility, ordering quantity and frequency and numeric distribution. This study provides bases for understanding private label operations in the unorganized retail sector in India.