Making Friends with the Private Label Idea

Source:  The Harvard Business Review:

If you think that Private Labeling is a risky business for your Spa or Alternative Health Practice or Medi-Spa, look at what the Harvard Business Review has to say (article by Philip Parker):

"In a variety of categories, including cellular phones, finacial services, and packaged goods, suppliers are helping their retail customers become competitors through the retailer's use of their own branded products.  This stimulates more than just low-price competition:  Many private label brands created and supported by large manufacturers are of equal or superior value to the manufacturer's regular brands."

This is often the case with private labelers in the Face & Body Products Industry and should not be ingored by the Retailer as part the a strategy in diversifying product line-ups.

Industry Leader Doug Preston
Gives A Valuable Marketing Tip

Source: Interactive Advertising Bureau: Total Revenues for 2005 are expected to reach $12 billion, a 25% increase over 2004's final tally of $9.6 billion.  (With final numbers in- it looks like revenues more than reached that projection, ABI, SpaStats.com)

Source:  The Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce:  The proportion of online retail sales to total retail sales reached 2.3% in the third quarter of 2005, compared with 2% in the third quarter of 2004.

Source:  Nielson//NetRatings (Subject- Newspapers):  Almost one in four U.S. Internet users now reads online versions of newspapers...More than 39 million unique Internet users visited newspaper websites in October 2005, up 11 percent increase from the previous year, and more than three times the year-over-year increase of overall Internet users.

Source:  Forrester Research (Subject- Online Retail Sales):  Online sales were $96 billion in 2003 and are expected to reach $230 billion by 2008 (10 percent of all U.S. retail sale.