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Published on March 4, 2008

Vice president for marketing and communications Jariya Chirathivat said yesterday that the company had used Leader Price for its house-brand products for seven years, but the name had failed to attract clients and increase sales compared with the average growth of other modern-trade house brands. Therefore, Big C decided to revamp the name of its products to boost brand awareness.

"I admit that the Leader Price brand failed throughout its seven years," Jariya said. "The products' positioning was not clear. The company started to delist product items from shelves since last year, resulting from the slow growth of sales. Sales of Big C's house brand products increased by 5 per cent last year compared with the overall market growth at 5.6 per cent, and this number did not satisfy us."

Last year, the value of modern-trade house brand products was Bt4.7 billion, an increase of 5.6 per cent from Bt4.4 billion the previous year. Big C has acquired a 13-per-cent share but expects to increase this to 20 per cent in three years.

She added that Big C had about 400 house-brand products and would increase this to 865 items by the middle of the year. Of the total, 55 per cent are dry food, 33 per cent non-food items and the remainder fresh food.

"The market outlook for house-brand products is not good if compared with the growth of brand-name products every year," Jariya said. "For Big C, the value of house-brand products has accounted for only 2 to 3 per cent of sales revenue each year. Thai consumers seem to select brand-name products due to their quality. However, I believe that after we rebrand, other rivals will shift to focus more on their own house-brand products to compete with us."

Nalin Viboonchart

The Nation