CVS, Walmart, and the rise of private labels as shoppy shop dupes

As store brand products take up a larger share of consumers’ shopping carts, retailers are beefing up their private label offerings with new brands that are increasingly taking on a similar look.



These private label brands are contemporary and bright, with friendly sans serif or script wordmarks, dynamic product photos and spot illustrations, and vivid color-on-color packaging. They’re personality-driven for sure, but whether it’s Target, Walmart, or the newest private label from CVS, they all seem to have the same personality type. Generic brands have a new generic look.



PERSONALITY-DRIVEN BRANDS ARE ON THE UP AND UP



Traditionally, private label packaging is low-frills and perfunctory, with minimal colors and graphics. Its positioning and look is intentionally designed to convey value. (See Walmart’s Great Value; Target’s Dealworthy ; Costco’s Kirkland Signature, which indicates “quality and value” in its tagline.) You don’t buy Dr. Perky over Dr. Pepper for the brand, you buy it for the price, and store brands didn’t shy away from the fact they were cheaper knockoffs of national brands.



Recently, however, companies have been rebranding their private label packaging with more expressive, technicolor packaging, like Walmart’s new Bettergoods brand , which wouldn’t look out of place on shelves alongside Target’s Good & Gather.



The newest private label brand getting stocked on shelves is from CVS Health, which just announced Well Market, a line of snacks, beverages, and grocery items. The packaging design utilizes a loopy and approachable cursive logo and multicolor packaging that’s anything but clinical. It may even make your forget you’re eating popcorn from a pharmacy. The CVS Health’s internal team designed the Well Market brand in collaboration with third-party vendors, the company says.



[Photo: Walmart]



“Like others in the industry, we’ve observed a growing customer preference for private label brands, driven by the reliable quality and affordability of our products,” says Mike Wier, vice president, store brand at CVS Health. “We worked to create Well Market as a private label destination brand that our customers can feel great about buying, consuming, and sharing.”



NOW, NEW BRANDS PAIR VALUE WITH ELEVATED EATING



There’s a sameness to the look of this new cohort of store brands and even a similarity to their names. They’re designed to look more upscale than yesterday’s private label to appeal to high-income shoppers, but not so much so that they seem too expensive, which would defeat the purpose. They’re also designed to be easy to spot, with nutritional information up front.



Beyond the newly designed store brands’ similarity to each other, you might not blame a stockist for confusing these rebranded private labels with higher-priced, highly designed products at discerning grocers like New York’s trendy  Pop up Grocer , either. That association isn’t necessarily an accident.



“We created Bettergoods based on a need we heard from customers for a well-designed, trend-forward, and affordable food offering that emphasized their love of food,” Walmart vice president of creative and design  David Hartman told  Fast Company  when the brand was released in April, adding that a goal for the line was to have the same shelf appeal as national brands.



This dovetails with CVS’s private label rebrand, which balances function and shelf-worthy packaging. “We’ve curated a range of packaging options designed to cater specifically to the busy routines of our consumers and stand out on shelf,” Wier says. “We highlight specific nutritional information on the front of our packaging so consumers can quickly understand the value our products bring.”



[Image: CVS]



Though store brand sales took a dip when the pandemic hit due to both supply chain volatility that hurt availability and pandemic-era stimulus that allowed customers to trade up to national brands, sales have since rebounded as shoppers squeezed by inflation look to make their dollars go further.



The percentage of consumer packaged goods purchases that were private label rose from 18.4% in 2006 to 21.8% in 2023, according to data from private-label manufacturer Treehouse Foods reported by the Wall Street Journal . Now, discount retailers like Walmart want to retain the customers they’ve gained, and attract new customers along the way. These private label rebrands are designed in part to lure in high-income shoppers who’ve begun trading down from national brands to beat inflation. No longer are generic brands trying to look cheap on purpose. Rather, they’re communicating increased product quality by using the visual design signals of more expensive brands—with a value price. Enter the era of the  shoppy shop  dupe.