Generic Products Survey: Most Believe Name Brands Mean Higher Quality

Generic and store brand products have been around for years, offering low cost alternatives to name brands in various industries. From grocery stores to pharmacies to shopping malls, consumers are often left with the choice of whether to spend a little more for brand names or save with generics. So how often do people decide to purchase generic products?

Generic Products

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 17% of respondents said they always buy generic products instead of name brand products. 23% said they buy generic products most of the time. 34% said they buy generic products about half the time and name brand products the other half. 21% said they mostly buy name brand products. And just 6% of respondents said they only buy name brand products and never their generic versions.

Types of Items

So what types of generic products are the most popular? Of those who said they sometimes buy generic products and sometimes buy name brand products, 86% said that they regularly buy generic food or grocery items. 54% said they regularly buy generic pharmacy items. 35% said they regularly buy store brand clothing or accessories. And just 5% said they buy other types of generic products, such as appliances. On the other hand, 80% of respondents said that they also regularly buy name brand food or grocery items. 49% said they regularly buy name brand pharmacy items. 56% said they regularly buy name brand clothing or accessories. And 4% said they regularly buy other types of name brand items, such as electronics or vehicle related items.

Brand Quality

Since they usually cost more, there’s a commonly held belief that name brand items are of higher quality than store brand or generic items, although that isn’t always the case. Just 8% of overall respondents said they believe name brand items are always of higher quality than generic versions. 70% believe that name brand items are sometimes of higher quality. 18% believe they are rarely of higher quality. And 4% believe name brand items are never of higher quality than store brand or generic items. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: 20111031-FNS-LSC-0200 from FlickrWhat do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on July 27 via AYTM’s online survey panel.