Central European Business Review 2012, 1(1):27-32 | DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.5

Private-Label Share during the Current Economic Slowdown: Investigation from the Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish Markets

Karel Týra¹, Miroslav Karlíček²

¹ Ing. Karel Týra, Client Service Director, Nielsen, Hvězdova 1716/2b, Praha 4, 140 78, karel.tyra@nielsen.com

² Ing. Miroslav Karlíček, Ph.D., Head of Marketing Department, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics, Prague, nám. W. Churchilla 4, Praha 3, 130 67, miroslav.karlicek@vse.cz

This paper investigates whether the current economic slowdown in four CEE countries was accompanied by strong growth of private-label share as theory suggests. Unexpectedly, based on the data of Nielsen Retail Measurement Service, we prove that the private-label share grew relatively slowly, although all four countries had a large potential for growth of this share. We demonstrate that the key reason behind this development was probably the massive in-store promotions that were decreasing the price gap between private labels and branded products. The managerial implications of these findings for both manufacturers and retailers within the region are discussed.

JEL classification: M31

Received: March 30, 2012; Revised: June 12, 2012; Published: June 30, 2012  Show citation