Introducing specialist private labels: How reducing manufacturers’ competing assortment size affects retailer performance

Stijn Maesen

International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2025, vol. 42, issue 1, 192-211

Abstract: Grocery retailers are increasingly introducing specialist private label products, leading to competition with manufacturers’ national brand products. In turn, retailers might consider reducing specialist national brand assortment size, but how this affects retailer performance is unclear. To address this question, this research analyses store-level scanner data before and after the launch of a specialist organic private label (OPL) line in 13 product categories. The results indicate that OPL introduction leads to significant reductions in organic national brand (ONB) assortment size. This amplifies OPL success by strengthening the positive relationship between OPL assortment size and OPL market share. However, while reducing ONB assortment size can amplify OPL success, it decreases overall sales in the category. A key contextual factor is the degree of organic product penetration in the category assortment. When organic penetration is lower, the beneficial effects of reducing ONB assortment size for the OPL line are weaker and the harmful effects for the category stronger. These findings provide novel insight into how disinvesting in national brand assortments when launching specialist private label products helps and harms retailers. That is, retail stores may be better off not reducing national brand assortments because doing so can result in a ‘larger share of a smaller pie’, especially when penetration of products with the specialist attribute is low.

Keywords: Retailing; Organic; Specialist; Private label; National brand; Retail assortment; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167811624000636
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ijrema:v:42:y:2025:i:1:p:192-211

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.08.002

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Research in Marketing is currently edited by Roland Rust

More articles in International Journal of Research in Marketing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().