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It's mostly to stop people from shopping around for a lower price. You can't sell something for $300 if somebody else is selling the same thing for £150. Amazon

It's mostly to stop people from shopping around for a lower price. You can't sell something for $300 if somebody else is selling the same thing for £150. Amazon will even merge your listings. But if you rebrand it you get your own listing, your own reviews (that you paid for) etc.

majewsky 8y ago
Brick-and-mortar stores sometimes use similar tactics. I recall reports of Media Markt and Saturn (two German electronics store chains) selling household appliances (washing machines, refrigerators, etc.) under changed model numbers. Still with the same brand name (because brand recognition is important), but with a different model number so that you cannot find the same model for a lower price somewhere else.
- goodcanadian 8y ago
  The different model number may indicate a store specific version of that model. There is an appliance company I'm familiar with that has a reputation for low quality products even though they sell the same brands as everyone else. Sure enough, the model numbers of the versions they sell are slightly different to everyone else. On a similar note, when buying a scooter for my daughter, I found the "same" scooter in Toys-R-Us and Walmart. Despite identical branding and packaging, the Walmart version was of noticeably poorer quality (different materials and so on). I didn't check model numbers / SKUs, but I would expect them to be different.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Different consumers care about different things. I worked at a retailer who would position certain brands as junk (and they were). The junk label would be used to upsell to a better product or sell a high margin extended warranty. The pricing was usually engineered to make the warranty marginally cheaper.
- imglorp 8y ago
  We see the same thing in the US for matresses, appliances, and especially electronics like TVs. Even well known large brands will be sold with long, and different, model numbers. The B&Ms know that people are comparison shopping, even as they browse the store: they'll be on their phones looking up model numbers to compare to online and at nearby stores. As we all know, a moat is preferable to competition, even if you have the same or inferior product.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Dixons Group are notorious for this in the UK.
- neor 8y ago
  They do this a lot, they ask manufacturers to create custom versions. With computers or laptops it could be a unique configuration, a combination of harddisk size and memory not sold elsewhere. This way the store can give you a "lowest price guarantee". Find it lower priced elsewhere, and we will pay you the difference! Easy to give such a guarantee if you're 100% sure no other store sells the exact model.
  - davnicwil 8y ago
    This also happens in the UK, except that many of the stores themselves are owned by the same conglomerate. Also easy to offer a lowest price guarantee when you know that customers are likely to only shop around at the high street 'competitors' which you also own. Will they bother to shop around? Doesn't really matter - heads you win, tails you win. Although this probably works less well with much of the demographic of people who buy computers in the online shopping age.
    - codetrotter 8y ago
      Norway too
- stevehawk 8y ago
  Not only can you not price match those situations but often times they get advertised as "exclusive" and maybe have one small feature change to warrant it.
- wincy 8y ago
  IKEA rebrands appliances in the US. However, I consider this a value add because IKEA has an excellent warranty policy. Sometimes rebranding makes sense when you have some sort of value to add to ownership.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
This doesn't stop the people who go on eBay (or anywhere else with an equally powerful search tool) and sort by price to get the same imported product without the custom branding.

majewsky 8y ago

Brick-and-mortar stores sometimes use similar tactics. I recall reports of Media Markt and Saturn (two German electronics store chains) selling household appliances (washing machines, refrigerators, etc.) under changed model numbers. Still with the same brand name (because brand recognition is important), but with a different model number so that you cannot find the same model for a lower price somewhere else.

goodcanadian 8y ago
The different model number may indicate a store specific version of that model. There is an appliance company I'm familiar with that has a reputation for low quality products even though they sell the same brands as everyone else. Sure enough, the model numbers of the versions they sell are slightly different to everyone else. On a similar note, when buying a scooter for my daughter, I found the "same" scooter in Toys-R-Us and Walmart. Despite identical branding and packaging, the Walmart version was of noticeably poorer quality (different materials and so on). I didn't check model numbers / SKUs, but I would expect them to be different.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Different consumers care about different things. I worked at a retailer who would position certain brands as junk (and they were). The junk label would be used to upsell to a better product or sell a high margin extended warranty. The pricing was usually engineered to make the warranty marginally cheaper.
imglorp 8y ago
We see the same thing in the US for matresses, appliances, and especially electronics like TVs. Even well known large brands will be sold with long, and different, model numbers. The B&Ms know that people are comparison shopping, even as they browse the store: they'll be on their phones looking up model numbers to compare to online and at nearby stores. As we all know, a moat is preferable to competition, even if you have the same or inferior product.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Dixons Group are notorious for this in the UK.
neor 8y ago
They do this a lot, they ask manufacturers to create custom versions. With computers or laptops it could be a unique configuration, a combination of harddisk size and memory not sold elsewhere. This way the store can give you a "lowest price guarantee". Find it lower priced elsewhere, and we will pay you the difference! Easy to give such a guarantee if you're 100% sure no other store sells the exact model.
- davnicwil 8y ago
  This also happens in the UK, except that many of the stores themselves are owned by the same conglomerate. Also easy to offer a lowest price guarantee when you know that customers are likely to only shop around at the high street 'competitors' which you also own. Will they bother to shop around? Doesn't really matter - heads you win, tails you win. Although this probably works less well with much of the demographic of people who buy computers in the online shopping age.
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    Norway too
stevehawk 8y ago
Not only can you not price match those situations but often times they get advertised as "exclusive" and maybe have one small feature change to warrant it.
wincy 8y ago
IKEA rebrands appliances in the US. However, I consider this a value add because IKEA has an excellent warranty policy. Sometimes rebranding makes sense when you have some sort of value to add to ownership.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

This doesn't stop the people who go on eBay (or anywhere else with an equally powerful search tool) and sort by price to get the same imported product without the custom branding.