SUPERMARKET customers love chasing a bargain, but nearly three-quarters say they buy their favourite, well-known brands over cheaper, store-owned ones.
Except at one chain. More than 60 per cent of Aldi customers say they prefer nabbing the German-owned discount chain's own branded products, new research from Roy Morgan shows, whereas only about 30 per cent at Coles, Woolworths and Foodland do so.
Overall, despite nearly half of Australia's 14 million regular grocery shoppers seeking to cut costs, 70 per cent say they stick with their favourite brands.
"Over the past five years, the proportion of grocery buyers who say they buy more stores' own products than well-known brands has remained static," Roy Morgan group account director Angela Smith said.
"Grocery buyers who usually shop at Aldi are a striking exception, being keen bargain hunters and prolific consumers of stores' own products."
The findings, based on more than 12,600 respondents, also show about half of regular Woolworths, Coles and Foodland shoppers agree with the words: "I trust well-known brands better than the store's own."
Only 29 per cent of customers at Aldi agree.
Shoppers at Woolworths are the least likely to buy the store's private-label items such as Homebrand, Select and Macro Wholefoods.
The news is a downer for market-dominating Woolworths, which conceded its shoppers viewed the quality of private-label brands at Aldi to be on par with or better than the Select brand at Woolworths and superior to its Homebrand range.
The retail giant plans to slash the prices of private-label grocery brands, which may cost it as much $1 billion.
Analysis by Morgan Stanley found prices at Aldi are 21 per cent higher than the Homebrand range at Woolworths but 27 per cent lower than the Select range. Aldi brands are 6 per cent cheaper than the own-brand range at Coles, but Coles brands are, on average, 34 per cent cheaper than the Select brand at Woolworths.
Last Wednesday, Coles managing director John Durkan said it will expand its branded product range to drive growth and rival the plans at Woolworths to match the prices at Aldi.
An Aldi spokesman said: "We concentrate on selling our select range of exclusive brands rather than spending money on customer loyalty programs or expensive point-of-sale displays."
Do you choose home brands over well-known brand products?
