THE INCREASING POWER OF STORE BRANDS - BUILDING LOYALTY AND MARKET SHARE

An important evolution in the retailing industry is the growing succes s of store brands. Still, their level of penetration varies widely acr oss countries and industries. We provide an operational measure to qua ntify the power of store brands along two dimensions: the intrinsic lo yalty of their customer base, and their conquesting power to attract p otential switchers. Based on their position along these two dimensions , we classify store and national brands as 'Giants', 'Misers', 'Fighte rs' or 'Artisans'. We use the proposed operationalization to evaluate the absolute and relative strength of Albert Heijn, the leading Dutch store brand, in 19 product categories. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.