Tag Archives: brand loyalty

My Last Meal

OK, that’s too dramatic: Last night I had my last meal with the last of the brand name items I used to buy.

My personality type (see my “real” career at www.vantageseminars.com) is one that’s the largest group in the country. We’re 35% of the population and we’re creatures of habit and really loyal to products and places we deal – to a point. Of the 10 most common grocery items I buy (excluding milk and eggs) this was the last brand name item. Classico pasta sauce went up over 30% in price over the past few months. Tell me again where inflation is down to 4%?

Change is hard for our personality types. We don’t “move” until the pain level is high enough. That kind of price increase was. It turns out – for this product like every other I’ve said good-bye to – there are no-name alternatives that are just as good or even better! But we’d never know if we don’t get ticked off enough to try!

Our upside is prices significantly lower. The downside for manufacturers and retailers is that our personality type doesn’t come back. But the savings are worth it.

Why Overpay THAT Much?

Loyalty is always a two-way street when it comes to the brands and the products we buy.

With some of the insane (and unjustified) price increases so far this year, loyalty to any one product can shred your wallet. That’s entirely unnecessary when there are normally substitutes that are just as good! I would estimate that there must be almost a dozen items that I’ve changed since the start of the year because of price increases of over 25%. Sorry, that’s not inflation – that’s taking advantage of the “everything is going up” resigned attitude to stick it to me.

Other items have always been less expensive, but brand-name companies know how loyal we are. Here’s a great example: I was loitering in the pharmacy area of Walmart two weeks ago waiting for a prescription. At the end of the aisle (companies pay for that prime spot) was a sale on Tylenol.

Costco 390 tablets for $22.99 = $0.059 per

While I stood there for about 10 minutes, at least a half dozen people walked by and grabbed one of the packages. Yet, right beside these, just not on the end-aisle were the no-name acetaminophen. Same product without the brand name!

Costco Kirkland Acetaminophen 500 tablets down to $0.016 per

They’re almost 350% cheaper! Yet nobody reached the two feet further to save three and a half times the money! No, that wasn’t very scientific, but it sure got me wondering where else we buy something blindly because of loyalty instead of checking the price!

For comparison, assuming it has to be Tylenol for some specific reason, here are the Walmart and Rexall prices from the same day:

Walmart 200 pack at $0.09 per Rexall 200 pack at $.135 per

While not everyone has a Costco membership, their no-name at 1.6 cents per compared to Rexall at over 8 times as much is a reason to re-think your brand loyalty, to shop around, and to consider a Costco membership (because half of it would have been paid for with this one purchase).