As its suppliers continue to boost costs, Walmart is promoting its private-label products to customers.
In an interview with Reuters, Edgewell Personal Care CEO Rod Little stated that passing on additional price increases to retailers would be challenging. Walmart is Edgewell’s top customer and the manufacturer of Schick razors.
“From here, our consumer is challenged, we’re going to be watching out for consumers, so you’re going to have to have really solid reasons if you’re going to price up from here,” Little said.
Walmart has an advantage here since its store brands — Great Value and Equate — compete with packaged goods behemoths like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the interviewee stated.
According to the analysis, 43% of store-brand packaged products purchased online in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2022 came from Walmart’s website, using data from research company Numerator.
As we discussed last week, private brands provide huge supermarket chains a price-cutting advantage over smaller competitors. Along with Walmart, Kroger has claimed increased sales in this area as shoppers trade brand loyalty for cost-cutting.
“Smaller retailers without private-label sales to fall back on have largely responded to inflationary pressures by raising prices, since fresh food price rises have disproportionately impacted them,”
Meanwhile, brands have disagreed in recent weeks on the issue of private labels. Some claim that decreasing inflation has caused people to change their spending habits. Others predict that 2023 will remain difficult, forcing consumers to make cuts and restrict their budgets.
