History of Private Label in JP

In Japan, consumers' attitudes to Private Label have been changed. In this paper, the consumers' attitudes and cases of creating the value of private label products in Japan are introduced.

Current situation of convenience store market in Japan

In 2015, there are more than 50 thousand of convenience stores in japan. Recent years, the market is saturated and some companies try to decrease the number of their stores. Under this situation, some companies have tried to make people come to their stores by introducing the special products such as limited-time products of National brand. And now, they are focusing on Private Label products.

The change of consumers' attitudes

The brand to private label ratio in japan is lower than the U.S and Europe. Also the private label product was thought as be cheap and nasty in people's mind. However, in recent years, the attitude to private label has been changed. Few years ago, people think private label products were just extra options of shopping, but nowadays, to get private label products become main purpose of shopping.

High-end private label: seven premium "Golden Bread"

7-eleven is the 1st place in the convenience store market in japan（in 2015）. Few years ago, 7-eleven started "7 premium" which is high-end line-up of private label. In the line-up, the product called "Golden Bread" got a lot of attentions. The product is the high-end bread and using fine ingredients. Even though Golden Bread's price is higher than the price of national brand's bread, the product has been succeeded. Nowadays, people go to 7-eleven for getting "Golden Bread" and the number of sales was more than 1.5 million.

Double-Brand product: 7Georgia

7-eleven launched the product "7Georgia" which is double-brand product of "7 premium" and "Georgia". "Georgia" is 1st place canned-coffee brand in Japan. The product is not as same as other products of Georgia, but made for this project by using fine ingredients and special method. 7-eleven is succeed to make people come to the store by providing the special product which cannot buy other convenience store.

Summary

Japan's convenience stores have tried to make people come to their store by providing special private label products. Also they tried to change the attitudes of people to private label from extra option to main purpose of shopping.

As described above, the trend that is focusing on creating the value of private label products will be continued.