Authored by Rebecca Maine, Sr. Director, Strategic Product Insights
Your brand might be well-liked, and you could still be losing ground to the store shelf right next to you in the branded vs private label decision.
That’s the uncomfortable reality facing CPG brands today. Private label has grown up in the branded vs private label choice. It’s no longer the option consumers settle for when times are tight. It has become a credible, shelf-stable competitor with lower price points, improved quality, and growing consumer trust. So you may ask… what separates brands that hold their ground from those that quietly cede share of wallet and of mind to consumers?
Curion recently conducted a study with 2,345 consumers across food/beverage and beauty/personal care categories to get to the bottom of that question. The findings are instructive and, in some places, sobering.
By the Numbers: What Consumers Said About Branded vs. Private Label
- 1 in 3 food consumers choose branded over private label for better flavor or texture
- 2 in 5 beauty consumers choose branded over private label for better quality
- 6 in 10 consumers won’t risk trying a private label product priced above $15
- Ingredient concerns generated nearly as many responses as price, the #1 driver
- Reviews influenced switches more than brand trust and personal recommendation.
- Packaging appeal drove twice as many switching considerations as brand trust
- Nearly 1 in 5 consumers choose branded simply because they know what they’re getting every time
Why Consumers Switch from Branded to Private Label (It's Not Just Price)
"Quality over Price. Simple math, is the product worth it, or am I paying for the label? Food is easy. I don't have to show it off."
When asked what factors would influence consumers to switch to a private label version of their favorite branded product, consumers cited “lower price” more than any other factor (842 responses).
That’s a significant signal, but here’s where it gets more nuanced: the next largest category of responses wasn’t indifference to brands. It was “comparable quality” (549 responses), followed by “taste parity”, and “comparable effectiveness”.
The data also points to a specific risk threshold. Nearly six in ten consumers said they would not risk trying a private label alternative on products priced above $15, with the largest share drawing the line at $10 or under. For brands in lower price-point categories, that comfort zone for experimentation is wide open. For premium brands, price alone is less likely to trigger a switch, but that protection is only as durable as the product experience behind it.
In other words, consumers are looking for a reason to feel confident in the switch. If your brand isn’t delivering a product experience that is meaningfully better or at minimum, clearly differentiated, you may be leaving the door open for private label to walk right in.
How Ingredients Became the New Deciding Factor
Consumers may not always lead with ingredients when explaining a purchase, but they reach for them instinctively when asked what could change their mind. That gap between assumed satisfaction and active scrutiny is exactly where brands lose ground quietly.
"I would need to know that the ingredients were the same. I perceive private label as having lower quality ingredients, even though I know that's sometimes not the case. I would want to know that it was the exact same as what I know and trust."
Better ingredients ranked third as a stated reason for choosing branded for both food (13.3%) and beauty (11.9%). Yet in open-ended responses, ingredient-related concerns generated 577 total mentions, the largest cluster in the data. This is one of the more striking data points from the study as consumers referenced ingredient-related concerns driven by “ingredient parity” and “clean ingredients” responses. One consumer stated “I do read my ingredients and would like to get the better option if it is available to me.” Another says something similar, “I am very open to private label versions of products. I am more concerned about ingredients (origin, quality) over brand name.”
Bottom line is this: for today’s consumer, the ingredient panel is a major purchase driver. Don’t ignore it. Brands that lean into ingredient transparency, proprietary formulations, or clean-label positioning have a meaningful opportunity to create distance from private label alternatives. The research confirms that consumers will consider switching to private label unless they have a compelling ingredient story keeping them on your side of the shelf.
Three Ways Branded Products Win Against Private Label
The study points to three actionable areas where branded products can build competitive resilience:
First, make your product better and make a claim. The performance advantage only protects your product if consumers know it exists. Flavor, texture, and effectiveness aren’t things consumers automatically assume in your favor. They’re things they test, consciously or not, every single purchase. Nearly 550 consumers said comparable quality would factor into a switch. That means your product’s “edge” sinks or swims by whether you’ve made it obvious enough to matter at the moment of the purchase decision.
Second, insist on consistency. Nearly 20% of consumers purchase branded products simply because they know what they’re getting every time. That reliability is something private label products can’t always replicate. Consistency isn’t glamorous, but it is sticky for consumers to remember and choose it again.
Third, voice what makes your product unique. Packaging appeal generated 178 consumer mentions in the open-end analysis, and that’s a number that rivals “brand trust” and “personal recommendation” combined. As one consumer says, “Packaging has to be appealing. Think: Trader Joe’s packaging.” Consumers respond to visual cues that signal quality and intention. If your packaging, your ingredients, or your formulation offers something distinctly yours, that distinction needs to be front and center in how you communicate.
What Makes Consumers Stay Loyal to Branded Over Private Label
"The primary factor that would influence whether or not I buy it is reputation.”
Despite the private label pressure, the research affirms that most consumers still believe in branded products. They associate them with higher quality, better taste, superior ingredients, and greater consistency. “Brand trust” and “personal recommendation” each generated meaningful response volumes, underscoring that earned credibility still matters to purchasing decisions.
"I am very particular when it comes to my skin and hair care products. I would have to have a reliable recommendation from someone that I personally know and trust in order to try the private label."
What’s telling, though, is the context. Those trust signals emerged in the same data set where 842 responses cited price as a switching lever. This means consumer loyalty is continuously earned or lost one product experience at a time. It’s not unconditional or guaranteed.
The data also reveals that not all branded loyalty looks the same. Food and beverage consumers and beauty and personal care consumers both prefer branded products, but for meaningfully different reasons.
- In food, the primary driver is sensory: better flavor and texture brought 31% of consumers back to branded on their last purchase.
- In beauty, the perception of quality does the work, with 40% of consumers citing it as their reason for choosing branded over private label.
The switching levers are not identical, and neither are the defenses. Across both categories, however, consistency and ingredients remain universal as the attributes consumers count on regardless of what they are buying.
Why Reviews Matter More Than Brand Trust
Reviews outrank brand trust by 35%... and personal recommendation by nearly 50%.
This is worth repeating. Reviews now outrank brand trust specifically when consumers are considering a switch to private label. Among social proof factors (reviews influence, brand trust, personal recommendations, manufacturer transparency, and brand endorsement signals), reviews from other consumers outranked both brand trust and personal recommendation. Consumers on the fence aren’t asking what the brand says about itself. They’re asking what strangers found when they tried the alternative.
Earned credibility, built purchase after purchase and reflected in the reviews consumers leave behind, is now doing more work than the brand name itself.
How Benchmarking Tells You Where Your Branded Product Stands Against Private Label
It’s easy to assume your brand is performing. It’s harder (and far more valuable) to know it. Benchmarking is how you know. Not how you suspect. Not how you hope. How you know.
Benchmarking measures your product’s actual performance against the alternatives your consumers are quietly comparing it to every time they stand at the shelf. It tells you whether your flavor advantage is real or assumed. Whether your ingredient story holds up next to the private label two inches to your left. Whether the consistency you’re counting on as a loyalty driver is landing with your consumers, or whether they’re noticing a gap you haven’t caught yet.
Benchmarking is – pure and simple – ground-level reality for your product, and it can change everything.
- It tells you exactly where to invest and where to act.
- It gives your innovation roadmap a foundation.
- It gives your marketing team claims they can stand behind.
- It gives you the answer to the most important question in the room: Is my product good enough?
One consumer in this study said it directly and it’s worth repeating here again: “Quality over price. Simple math — is the product worth it, or am I paying for the label?” And that type of consumer behavior is happening at shelf, in real time, for every product, in every category.
In the end, the brands holding their ground right now have planned for this battle. They walk into their board meetings knowing their product delivers because they have the data to back their claims. Not assumptions. Answers. And that gives them the clarity to move with confidence.
Is your product delivering on what your brand is promising? Make sure you know before the shelf answers for you.