Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, , course: Ph. D., language: English, abstract: Private Labels occupy a significant share of organized retail in Europe and United States. With recent growth of organized retail in India Private Labels also emerged in Indian retail landscape. Though private labels arrived in India long back but still Private Labels have not picked up in India, the way they have picked up in other countries. Many of the Indian retailers like Shoppers Stop, Future Group, Tata’s Croma and Aditya Birla Retail’s More, Spenser’s etc are relaying on Private Label strategy in a big way as consumers seek quality products at affordable prices. Besides, rapid technological and socio-economic changes over the last decade have affected the buying behavior of consumers, forcing retailers to innovate and build new brands (private brands/ store brands) across different categories and various price points to attract more buyers to their stores. They have not only created new labels but have customized and localized those products to suit Indian tastes. Private Labels have attracted attention of researchers from the western world for a long period of time. In India even after introduction of Private Labels by retailers very few studies have been conducted to understand different dimensions like introduction and management of Private Labels by retailers and adoption by Indian consumers. The book presents an analysis of consumer perception and attitude towards Private Labels in India which is the outcome of study conducted in NCR region in India during 2008 - 2010.

Various psychographic traits that most directly influence consumers’ private label attitudes are the focal point of Stefanie Weiss’ investigation. The author develops a comprehensive profile of psychographic predictors of attitude and identifies ways of translating these insights into managerial practice. Her conclusions thereby strongly contribute to understanding and describing purchasers of private labels and can be meaningfully applied to the management areas of brand positioning and market segmentation. The hypothesized relationships between consumers’ private label attitude and various psychographic traits are tested on a sample of German and Austrian consumers using an online questionnaire. Their response data are then analyzed using the multiple regression technique.

The growth in private labels has huge implications for managers on both sides.

During the last decades, private label products evolution has radically changed the retail industry in manifold ways. Nowadays, private label products are constantly gaining market shares and penetrate in new product categories. Numerous studies have identified several factors affecting consumers' attitudes towards private label products. This paper examines consumers' perception on private label products, as compared with the branded products, under the spectrum of five basic dimensions: (a) quality, (b) price, (c) packaging, (d) status and (e) innovation. Moreover, it attempts to identify changes in Greek consumers' attitudes towards private label products within the last three years, and thus investigate the impact of the current economic recession. Finally, differences in consumers' attitudes across specific private label product categories (ie. food, home care and personal care) are examined. Primary empirical research was conducted, focusing on Greek consumers shopping attitudes. The findings of the research, confirmed the existence of differences in consumers' evaluations between private label and branded products under all dimensions examined. Branded products were favoured as far as it concerns their quality, packaging, status and innovation. On the other hand, as it was expected, private label products were favoured for their price. In addition, statistically significant differences were found in consumers' attitudes towards private label products within the last three years. It seems that consumers have become more price sensitive, thus their attitudes towards private label products has changed in a positive way compared with three years ago. Finally, differences were also found in consumers' attitudes towards private label products across the three product categories examined. Specifically, it was found that consumers, as regards private label products, tend to have a positive attitude towards home care products and negative attitude towards food and especially personal care products. Several managerial implications for marketers were also identified.

The aim of this paper is to analyse consumers' perception about private label products of Indian retailers and to examine the group difference between gender of the consumers and their perceptions towards private label product attributes. Total 345 samples are collected from consumers across the retailers in Hyderabad through structured questionnaire by applying convenient sampling technique. Responses are recorded on 5-point Likert scale where 1 stands for strongly disagree, 3 stands for neither disagree nor agree and 5 stands for strongly agree. Descriptive statistics is used to analyse the frequencies of agreement on perception towards private label products. Independent-samples t-test is used to test the hypotheses regarding group difference between gender and consumers' perception towards private label products. Findings of the study reveal that consumers perceive private label products that they are cheaper in price, lower in quality, involve risk but ultimately buying them is value for money. Male and female consumers perceive same regarding all the attributes of private label products but they differ significantly about their quality.

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: Merti, University of Lincoln (Graduate School), course: Master's in Business Administration, language: English, abstract: The study is based on analyzing young Indian’s perceptions on foreign branded apparels and analysis of Indian youth customer’s behavior. The investigation primarily aimed at analyzing young Indian customer’s behavior and exploring the relation between them with foreign branded apparels. It also included the theoretical study of Brands & Brand Management and the key drivers that has a likely impact on customer’s behaviors, which used Indian young customers as target participants for the study. The study finalizes that fact that brands have significant impact of customer’s behavior by outlining the key drivers that would enable gradual sales for organizations, by presenting various theories, models, and methodologies to arrive at a conclusion. In the theoretical part of the study, the researches makes a prompt attempt to explore the relationship between consumer behaviors and brands considering the influential factors acting upon the mindsets of the customer’s. The consumer’s decision-making abilities and process are subjected with brands elements and factors that would build effective global brands to fulfill the objectives of the study and arrive at conclusion. Findings from theoretical and practical analysis determines that the global brands managers should realize that building brands on target customer bases and their perceptions would contribute to the growth of their businesses. The study also outlines that fact that, young generations are more attracted towards the brands rather than the products they purchase. The study also confirms that, consumer behaviors are subjected to brand perceptions and among the targeted Indian young Indian customers; brands play a significant role in facilitating the purchase decision. These facts are the empirical evidences provided by 102 participants of the survey and 38 industry and retail experts who took place in interviews conducted by the researcher. Finally, the study outlines recommendations for the readers and brand marketers stating; brands are the intangible building tools of organization and global firms operating in India should consider the young generations as their major source of customer bases and design their strategies that would cater all the young customers irrespective of locations in India.