Will this Hit Gillette?

[mrscottishman]

Interesting story about Walmart and others reducing the number of brand name staple type items in favor of more profitable (to the store) store brand items. I am seeing this in laundry soap, toilet paper and other items already and I said it was bound to grow since it puts more money into the stores profits.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/15/news/companies/walmart_dropping_brands/

Will it affect the cartridge sales and the goo/accessories market?

best,
mrscottishman

 

[Mulie1]

Mens shaving products already have a small retail space at Walmart and Target!

 

[michiganlover]

This won't effect Gillette in the slightest. As I understand it, Gillette, and other very large companies "rent" X amount of retail space, and then decide what they want to fill that space with.

Coke/Pepsi is another company that does this, and in large operations such as Wal-Mart all of the stocking of the product (and the design of those fancy displays around Christmas time) is done by an employee of Coke/Pepsi. The store itself doesn't handle the stocking of this product.

 

[Drubbing]

I doubt it; we don't have wal mart in Australia...

 

[Stubblefield]

I doubt it. Gillette is one of the few companies that have been able to maintain prices/and margins despite Walmart's incessant pressure to bring price down. Walmart is free to offer substitutes, but Gillette does such an effective job of advertising that consumers will still buy Gillette, as they have been led to believe that generic cartridges are not as good as the latest multi blade wonder. Walmart can offer a cheaper-but not exact-substitute, but it is doubtful consumers will take the bait.

 

[Sterling Cooper]

I doubt it. Gillette is one of the few companies that have been able to maintain prices/and margins despite Walmart's incessant pressure to bring price down. Walmart is free to offer substitutes, but Gillette does such an effective job of advertising that consumers will still buy Gillette, as they have been led to believe that generic cartridges are not as good as the latest multi blade wonder. Walmart can offer a cheaper-but not exact-substitute, but it is doubtful consumers will take the bait.

I'm pretty sure that has to do with Fusion cartridges still being under patent. If Wal-Mart wants their share of the gigantic market for Fusion cartridges--and all of the advertising that P&G puts behind it--they really have no alternatives. I'm sure that Wal-Mart could try to play hardball on some products that are no longer under patent protection, but Gillette seems to be one of the few companies in a position to tell Wally to go pound sand.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Gillette kicks a significant amount of cash to Wal-Mart (and everyone else) for premium shelf space at eye-level in retail stores. All of the biggest players do this.

 

[crocto]

go into a wal-mart during shelf stocking time and you'll find the coke guy, pepsi guy, gilette guy, charmin guy, huggies guy etc. wal-mart employees don't stock the shelves anymore the product company reps do that as well as re-order, change prices and basically everything else except ring you up.

 

[JCalkin]

go into a wal-mart during shelf stocking time and you'll find the coke guy, pepsi guy, gilette guy, charmin guy, huggies guy etc. wal-mart employees don't stock the shelves anymore the product company reps do that as well as re-order, change prices and basically everything else except ring you up.

True, on the increasingly rare occasion you get a human being to ring you up. I've noticed that in some local Wal*Marts the self check out lines outnumber the staffed check out lines (the "open" ones, anyway).

Soon the only actual employees of Wal*Mart will be the greeters, and the suits in Bentonville.

 

[Topgumby]

Worth noting that Gillette isn't more than a brand for Proctor and Gamble, it hasn't been a company for quite some time.

 

[Saxmoore]

A few months ago I cheaped out and bought the Vons brand draw-string kitchen trash bags instead of the Hefty because they were cheaper. Yeah...no kidding. Every time I pulled the bag out of the can by the strings the top seam would rip out and the draw-strings came right off. I won't be buying those again, but we had to go through 50 of these bags becacuse I'm cheap like that

I always get bitten when I go cheap. Why do I have to re-learn this lesson all the time? I notice that store brand items (like cookies) are close to the original but never quite as good. I usually avoid them. So if one has some problems with a multi-blade razor, I can only imagine how bad the store brand would be.

Quality vs. price. It's a never ending battle.

 

[Sledgehammer39]

This won't effect Gillette in the slightest. As I understand it, Gillette, and other very large companies "rent" X amount of retail space, and then decide what they want to fill that space with.

Coke/Pepsi is another company that does this, and in large operations such as Wal-Mart all of the stocking of the product (and the design of those fancy displays around Christmas time) is done by an employee of Coke/Pepsi. The store itself doesn't handle the stocking of this product.

Yup, I got to agree with this +1

 

[DFrancis]

Gillette has more to fear from Merkur than from Wal-Mart, so in other words, they have noting at all to fear from Wal-Mart.

 

[seabs]

A few months ago I cheaped out and bought the Vons brand draw-string kitchen trash bags instead of the Hefty because they were cheaper. Yeah...no kidding. Every time I pulled the bag out of the can by the strings the top seam would rip out and the draw-strings came right off. I won't be buying those again, but we had to go through 50 of these bags becacuse I'm cheap like that

I always get bitten when I go cheap. Why do I have to re-learn this lesson all the time? I notice that store brand items (like cookies) are close to the original but never quite as good. I usually avoid them. So if one has some problems with a multi-blade razor, I can only imagine how bad the store brand would be.

Quality vs. price. It's a never ending battle.

I pretty much have the opposite experience. For most things store brands and generics tend to be very similar, if not identical and sometimes better, to their brand name counterparts. I don't think I've really been 'bitten' by going cheap. It doesn't apply to everything of course and I will still buy name brand soda, toilet paper, etc.

 

[crocto]

also if you read the article carefully you'll note that pactiv made a deal with wal-mart saying that they would produce the wal-mart brand bags. so basically pactiv has their brand name product on the shelf right next to the wal-mart (but pactiv made) brand.

some store brands are actually quite good. food lion chips ahoys are tasty and wegmans brand anything is very good.