A majority of households will be watching Super Bowl XLIV at home or at a friend or relative’s house instead of watching from a restaurant or bar.

Price is only one of five things consumers look for when shopping. Raising store brand prices by just one cent translates to roughly $400 million dollars in sales across all departments. For U.S. retailers, it begs the question: Is it time for a price hike?

There’s no place like home for penny-pinching consumers who are eating out less and spending more on perishables. It all adds up to $6 billion in potential market growth.

When it comes to alcoholic beverages, there will still be a good amount of holiday cheer in the coming months.

As American consumers get set to buy nearly 600 million pounds of candy this Halloween, they are choosing fewer store brand or private label sweets, opting instead for brand name treats.

The notion that the global economy may be on the verge of recovery has not yet translated into improved consumer spending or confidence, although consumers in the emerging countries – Brazil, India and China – seem to be more optimistic than others and are loosening their purse strings ever so slightly, according to the new edition of the Nielsen Economic Current.  Of the 12 countries Nielsen now tracks, all but Taiwan (which declined) showed no significant change in measures of spending.  Canadian, Western European and American spending was, at best, …

Consumers are continuing to purchase private label products at an increasing rate, according to new research from The Nielsen Company.
The “U.S. Store Brand Development” found that both private label dollar and unit sales significantly increased for the 52-week period ending July 11, 2009 versus the prior year.
Dollar sales grew by 7.4 percent to $85.9 billion within food, drug and mass-merchandisers (including Walmart), with shares recorded at 16.9 percent. This reflects an increase of 0.7 points from the previous year. Growth peaked in 2008 but then slowed slightly in 2009 with …

The number of drug stores in the U.S. has declined by more than 2,000 in the last 7 years (to 37,700 outlets), as independent pharmacies close.  And in the last decade, the percent of U.S. households shopping in drug stores has dropped from 89 percent to 81 percent.  But the drug store channel generates more than $43 billion in sales, excluding prescriptions, and the nation’s leading chains are continuing to innovate to grow their share of the consumer’s spend. 
So what are the top selling categories in the drug channel? Six …

Store, or private label, brands have seen their popularity grow in the U.S. and Europe as retailers have improved the quality and breadth of offerings to appeal to consumers watching their money more carefully.   Once known for being simply cheaper – and not as good – alternatives to name brands, private label products have been one of the bright spots for retailers in an otherwise gloomy economic environment.  The shift to private label has also attracted Australian consumers, and recent research from The Nielsen Company has found that such products …

Todd Hale, Senior Vice President – Consumer & Shopper Insights
A fellow Nielsen associate recently sent me an article she had received from a client about how private label was receiving high acceptance among even affluent American households.  While I am a huge fan of the attitudinal insights from consumer survey data, I am also a huge fan of the behavioral insights from consumer panel data.  The best of both worlds is when we get to integrate both data types in our analytical work in the consumer packaged goods industry.  But …