Abstract:

Market importance of private labels is continuously increasing in the last few decades. Most people are buying private labels at least in some product categories, but not all consumers are equally inclined to buy private labels regularly or in most product categories. Regarding the fact that consumers of different lifestyles also have different attitudes toward products and brands, the aim of this paper is isolation of consumer segments according to food consumption lifestyle, identification of their demographic characteristics and to determine how different segments perceive private label food products (perception of price, quality, value, country of origin, satisfaction with offer, loyalty, recommendation). Food Related Lifestyle instrument, constituted of 69 statements, was used to measure five dimensions (ways of shopping, quality aspects, cooking methods, consumption situations, purchasing motives). Methods used for analysing of collected data are descriptive statistics, cluster analysis and Kruskal Wallis test. Three different segments of consumers regarding food lifestyle are identified by cluster analysis and these are: Traditionalists (2%), Experimentalists (60,5%) and Relaxed (37,6%). Results show that retailers should focus on the Experimentalists when developing private labels. Special focus should be directed towards improving private label quality, offer consumers as much information as possible (on product characteristics and usage possibilities) and adjust the sales area to make the shopping more relaxed.