Home > National > Guest Reports

[Sponsored Report] E-Mart’s ‘No Brand’ is low-cost, high-quality

Published: 30 Oct. 2015, 00:27

Last April, E-Mart launched its “No Brand” line of products, which eliminated the costs derived from branding and packaging while keeping quality high.

No Brand was devised as part of E-Mart’s “Invention” project, an internal campaign to promote new ideas in product development, marketing and business strategy to pique the interest of consumers. With “No Brand,” E-Mart focused on the fact that the essence of consumer products is in quality and price, not brand names.

Although branding is an important factor that can help consumers make purchasing decisions, it has a downside: brand development and advertising elevate costs, which consequently raises the final price of a product.

No Brand lowered its prices by foregoing the whole branding process, as well as minimizing packaging design. As a result, No Brand products are much cheaper than national-brand products, with the biggest price gap recorded so far at 67 percent.

E-Mart’s No Brand products are gaining popularity as consumers seek ways to save in the troubled economy.

The line of products has sharply expanded from its initial nine to the current 199, ranging from potato chips to batteries, notebooks, tissues and microwaves. E-Mart is planning to further expand to include 300 products by the end of this year.

No Brand’s potato chips, released on June 29, sold out within 43 days - some 250,000 bags in all. So far, over 1.13 million bags have been consumed. No Brand’s wet tissues sold 1.55 million units after launching in early July.

Much of the success stems from the reviews the products have received on blogs and social networking services, which have highlighted No Brand’s quality.

“To satisfy consumers, we are constantly looking for new items to add to the No Brand line,” said a spokesman of E-Mart’s No Brand team.