QBerg Obervatory Pet care. Private Label around the world. From flyer promotion to e-commerce websites

Pet Care

Private Label around the world from flyer promotion to e-commerce websites

QBerg, Italian Research Institute, leader in price intelligence services and cross-channel assortment strategies, together with IRI, has analyzed the state of the art of PL on promotional flyers and e-commerce websites, comparing large-scale distribution (Hypermarket, Supermarket, Discount and Drug Specialist) and Specialists in YTD to September 2021.

Aaccording to this analysis, private label is an important lever for turnover, something retail has been focusing on for years now. Unless they display the logo or name of the brand, they are absolutely indistinguishable from the best-known store brands, whether the consumer is in front of the real or the virtual shelf. And Pet Care is no exception, indeed!

Let's start with something: PL is predominant in both Flyers (large-scale distribution and Specialists) and on the Web (especially in Specialists). We gathered all PL brands under one fictional manufacturer. What emerged? In the large-scale Flyers, PL appears as the first manufacturer, slightly more visible than the first branded manufacturer, called ‘MAN-1’ and far behind the ‘Top 5’. In the Specialists Flyer, this gap is even wider. In fact, PL alone accounts to as much as the Top 5 added together; a trend not reflected in large-scale distribution e-commerce websites, although PL boasts a very respectable fourth place in the rankings.

This trend is not simply reflected in all the categories or in the different channels. We see in fact that in the large-scale distribution Flyer, PL is even over 30% in Dog Accessories and Cat Accessories, while in Pet Food it reaches ‘only’ 23%. In the Specialists Flyer, instead, it is the Accessories and Litter for other animals to register a Qp4 share of 42.1%, where the 26% share of Pet Food stands out. The large-scale distribution online market, on the other hand, sees an important presence of PL in Pet Food and Cat Accessories, much less so in the other categories. Cat Accessories and Pet Food are also the two categories where PL boasts a share of over 20% in the Pet Specialist online.

PL visibility share for the PET CARE Macrocategory (YTD 2021@set; Qp3 Share: WEB display share)

Source: In-Store Point

PL visibility share for the PET CARE Category (YTD 2021@set; Qp3 Share: WEB display share)

Source: In-Store Point

This is the conclusion we have drawn by observing the data on the number of brands and unique references that have appeared on flyers and websites dealing with Pet Care in 2021. The large-scale distribution flyer is unrivalled: there are as many as 70 PL brands that have appeared on the promotional pages of this important media. Much more concentrated, instead, is the Specialists flyer, with only 28 brands.

The numbers rise up to 50 and 62, respectively for the WEB and large-scale distribution and for that of PET Specialists.

The proportion is somehow confirmed for the number of unique references in Flyers (1908 for the large-scale distribution against 978 for the Specialists), it is totally overturned in favor of the Specialists in the online. The latter is considered an important showcase, where the specialists can more easily rotate a very high number of unique references, equal to 8393 against the 1028 of large-scale distribution e-commerce websites.

Fabrizio Pavone Marketing Manager and Business Development of QBergg

Number of Unique PL references in the Macrocategory of PET CARE (YTD 2021@set; N. of brands)

Source: In-Store Point

Number of Unique PL references in the Macrocategory of PET CARE (YTD 2021@set; N. Unique References)

Source: In-Store Point