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Having never heard of Brandless, I was hoping they were possibly marketing something I have a fierce desire for, which is consumer products with minimal brandin

by hug 7y ago

Having never heard of Brandless, I was hoping they were possibly marketing something I have a fierce desire for, which is consumer products with minimal branding, that are superlatively well made, and priced commensurately. Unfortunately, finding these kinds of products is hard, and i don't quite understand why. About the closest I have found to this ethos in a mass-market kind of way is Muji, but only some of their consumer goods are actually solid and worth purchasing. Anything they sell that is made of plastic is almost certainly not. The next nearest thing to this seems to be certain classes of Etsy stores that take pride in how well they manufacture their products, but unfortunately this approach isn't replicable to any number of things.

ProfessorLayton 7y ago
This does exist and is fairly common, at least in retail, otherwise known as "White label products". Costco's Kirkland brand is a fantastic example of this, where they rebrand the same products such as a particular SKU of vodka under their own Kirkland brand. A lot of in-house brands are just white labeled versions of a branded product. The rub is that not all are high-quality brands like Costco's
- filoleg 7y ago
  Kirkland brand vodka is indeed a gem in the rough. I just wish there was a brand of "white label products", where every single item is consistently good, because the range of quality when it comes to each individual item within a "white label" is still pretty high. Though I realize that at this point, it would become a brand of its own.
  - edoceo 7y ago
    Kirkland has a single malt that is, with surprise, not worse than St George. Not as good as Glen Turret but, you'd have a second dram.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      I was always afraid to buy "white label" alcohol that wasn't super basic stuff like vodka or cheap wine, but with this rec, I will definitely give their single malt a try. Thank you!
- hug 7y ago
  Unfortunately, as you mention, not all are high-quality. If I want good white-label vodka I go to Costco. Good white-label monitor arms apparently come from AmazonBasics. Good white-label socks come from a third place. Even worse than the fact that these different classes of products are in different places is that even items in the same class from the same place are completely different quality. Costco's vodka might be fine, their whiskey might be awful. Monitor arms from amazonbasics are fine but their mic arms are garbage. There's no manufacturer of consistently very high quality consumer goods. There's not even a manufacturer I can point to and say "everything they make, even in their narrow field, is fantastic". And that sucks.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Sears used to be that, back in the day (not recently - say, maybe pre-2000). "Quality at a decent price" was their motto, and they did pretty well at it. You could by clothes, tools, appliances, and none of it would fall apart on you. They also had, perhaps not white-label brands, but their own brands. Craftsman tools were pretty solid. There might be an opening for someone to do that again. There's a cost to going to 17 places for 17 things. Even if you're online shopping and getting free delivery on everything, there's still a cost in terms of time and aggravation. It might be worth something if some business solved that. Unfortunately, I don't see anybody who would do so. Amazon would have to control quality of everything they sell (or start a premium brand that was actually premium). Sears has been irrelevant for a couple of decades, and soon will be history. Costco seems to me to have the best chance of pulling this off - their quality is reasonable-to-good on most things we've tried there, but there's a lot we haven't tried. Still, they seem to have the best handle on consistent quality out of any of the current contenders.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    I find Kirkland products to all be of pretty high quality. Especially the food. And you can get Kirkland socks, home goods, just about everything. Though I don't think they do electronics. There was an expose a few years ago on olive oil. Kirkland brand olive oil was one of the only brands to actually be pure olive oil. And that was comparing it to many Italian "high end" brands.
  - 7y ago
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Most grocery store house brand corn flakes are made by Kellogg's. If you pour a bowl of the store brand and the Kellogg's, you'll notice there is a difference: the Kellogg's flakes are larger. The store brand box is mostly the corn flakes that met a lower quality standard but are still of acceptable quality. Wouldn't be surprised if this is often the case with other white label or store brands.
- wigl 7y ago
  I remember seeing in-person about 10 years ago, that a staff editor at a well-known cooking/lifestyle mag was evaluating different prepared food item recipes to be sold under the Kirkland brand. I don't know if they do this kind of testing anymore but it made me feel better about eating their pesto instead of just using a blender. Also in Modernist Bread, it's noted that the baguette scoring at the Seattle Costco was better than the scoring at many Parisian bakeries.
- caro_douglos 7y ago
  Grocery stores will also do this with things like rice.
sho 7y ago
I would love the same thing and have often dreamed of starting such a company. And you're totally right about muji - do you know what its full name means in japanese? Something like "No logo high quality"! And I do believe it was started with that ethos properly in mind. Another one that comes to mind is, believe it or not, IKEA. IKEA used to be very good, and pretty expensive. But I think that all such high-minded projects, especially once the founder becomes less involved, become subject to the "optimisation" of capitalism. The next CEO after the founder steps down might not be quite so high-minded, and the process known as "quality fade" begins.
tylerrobinson 7y ago
May I ask why “minimal branding” is so appealing to you, in addition to being superlatively well made?
- hug 7y ago
  For two reasons. The first is that I dislike the idea of being a walking advertisement. The second is that frankly I find most brand logos to be somewhat tacky. Branding is fine if it is considered, but most simply isn't. If you make something well enough, people who love your gear for its quality will shout about it from the rooftops.
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    Part of the reason it’s hard to find good white label clothing is that you’re not advertising for them when you wear their product.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - jbc1 7y ago
    If you're talking about clothing, the unbranded/no logo high quality option is bespoke tailoring. Or just unbranded mediocre stuff off the shelf and then tailored to fit.
staticautomatic 7y ago
I've always wanted a minimalist Dean and DeLuca meets Trader Joe's.
darkerside 7y ago
If you're really spending that much on quality materials and craftsmanship, why not spend a tiny bit more overhead to effectively market it? That's why judging based on marketing is actually rational.
- skat20phys 7y ago
  I'm actually very opposed to visible branding on a lot of things, especially clothing. At first I felt like I was being a little obsessive-compulsive but then eventually realized it's an ethical issue for me. Every time someone puts on a garment with a logo, they're being used to serve the interests of the corporation and not their own interests in a tiny way. The fact that this seems so natural says a lot about the state of our society in this regard. As for your argument, I think it's reasonable but I would turn it on its head: to me every bit of money that's going into visible branding in some way is a signal that the company is putting effort into advertising itself on the outside of the clothing rather than improving quality. I can think of a couple of companies I buy from whose quality has declined in the last couple of decades overall in certain regards, and it's been directly associated with an increase in visible branding on their goods. Basically they started cashing in on their reputation, focusing on their brand identity rather than the quality of their items. Judging from comments in various places I'm not alone in the sense their quality has declined. My impression is actually that it is not difficult to find minimally branded high-quality goods in many areas. In fact, the highest quality goods in a some areas are those with minimal or no branding. I admit there are also many areas, like athletic wear, where this isn't usually the case. On the other hand, I've often noticed that if you actually compare some types of very high end activewear to less expensive variants, the difference is often just the logos. You're in effect paying more to have the logos off rather than less. I personally feel that companies should be shamed out of including visible logos on their clothing. Maybe we're talking about different things though. I do think having brand identifiers of some sort somewhere is important, as it increases accountability. And some things that are likely to be shuffled away, like laundry detergent, I don't really care about. But things that are likely to be out and about? Especially on you as a person? Brand visibility shouldn't be a factor imho.
  - 7y ago
bobthepanda 7y ago
So a non-food version of Trader Joe's own-label products?
- hug 7y ago
  I've never seen a Trader Joe's in my life, so I'm going to go with a very firm maybe.
veeralpatel979 7y ago
> Unfortunately, finding these kinds of products is hard, and I don't quite understand why. I'll reckon a guess: most companies aspire to differentiate themselves and retain customers by building brands. The alternative is race-to-the-lowest-price commodification and continual, cutthroat competition.
duhi88 7y ago
I'm a fan of these sorts of brands, too. I'd guess these products are hard to find because they don't show the same year after year growth you'd see with heavily marketed brands. Not the kind of returns a VC firm is going to want, anyway. You need a stable brand, stable products, and patient owners. --- You might be interested in N0-AD suncare, which does only sunscreen. I've https://no-ad.com/ https://no-ad.com/
andy800 7y ago
Second mention of Muji I've seen on HN this week. Just about everything Muji is absolutely terrific, even many of their plastic products.

by hug 7y ago

ProfessorLayton 7y ago

This does exist and is fairly common, at least in retail, otherwise known as "White label products". Costco's Kirkland brand is a fantastic example of this, where they rebrand the same products such as a particular SKU of vodka under their own Kirkland brand. A lot of in-house brands are just white labeled versions of a branded product. The rub is that not all are high-quality brands like Costco's

filoleg 7y ago
Kirkland brand vodka is indeed a gem in the rough. I just wish there was a brand of "white label products", where every single item is consistently good, because the range of quality when it comes to each individual item within a "white label" is still pretty high. Though I realize that at this point, it would become a brand of its own.
- edoceo 7y ago
  Kirkland has a single malt that is, with surprise, not worse than St George. Not as good as Glen Turret but, you'd have a second dram.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    I was always afraid to buy "white label" alcohol that wasn't super basic stuff like vodka or cheap wine, but with this rec, I will definitely give their single malt a try. Thank you!
hug 7y ago
Unfortunately, as you mention, not all are high-quality. If I want good white-label vodka I go to Costco. Good white-label monitor arms apparently come from AmazonBasics. Good white-label socks come from a third place. Even worse than the fact that these different classes of products are in different places is that even items in the same class from the same place are completely different quality. Costco's vodka might be fine, their whiskey might be awful. Monitor arms from amazonbasics are fine but their mic arms are garbage. There's no manufacturer of consistently very high quality consumer goods. There's not even a manufacturer I can point to and say "everything they make, even in their narrow field, is fantastic". And that sucks.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Sears used to be that, back in the day (not recently - say, maybe pre-2000). "Quality at a decent price" was their motto, and they did pretty well at it. You could by clothes, tools, appliances, and none of it would fall apart on you. They also had, perhaps not white-label brands, but their own brands. Craftsman tools were pretty solid. There might be an opening for someone to do that again. There's a cost to going to 17 places for 17 things. Even if you're online shopping and getting free delivery on everything, there's still a cost in terms of time and aggravation. It might be worth something if some business solved that. Unfortunately, I don't see anybody who would do so. Amazon would have to control quality of everything they sell (or start a premium brand that was actually premium). Sears has been irrelevant for a couple of decades, and soon will be history. Costco seems to me to have the best chance of pulling this off - their quality is reasonable-to-good on most things we've tried there, but there's a lot we haven't tried. Still, they seem to have the best handle on consistent quality out of any of the current contenders.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  I find Kirkland products to all be of pretty high quality. Especially the food. And you can get Kirkland socks, home goods, just about everything. Though I don't think they do electronics. There was an expose a few years ago on olive oil. Kirkland brand olive oil was one of the only brands to actually be pure olive oil. And that was comparing it to many Italian "high end" brands.
- 7y ago
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Most grocery store house brand corn flakes are made by Kellogg's. If you pour a bowl of the store brand and the Kellogg's, you'll notice there is a difference: the Kellogg's flakes are larger. The store brand box is mostly the corn flakes that met a lower quality standard but are still of acceptable quality. Wouldn't be surprised if this is often the case with other white label or store brands.
wigl 7y ago
I remember seeing in-person about 10 years ago, that a staff editor at a well-known cooking/lifestyle mag was evaluating different prepared food item recipes to be sold under the Kirkland brand. I don't know if they do this kind of testing anymore but it made me feel better about eating their pesto instead of just using a blender. Also in Modernist Bread, it's noted that the baguette scoring at the Seattle Costco was better than the scoring at many Parisian bakeries.
caro_douglos 7y ago
Grocery stores will also do this with things like rice.

sho 7y ago

I would love the same thing and have often dreamed of starting such a company. And you're totally right about muji - do you know what its full name means in japanese? Something like "No logo high quality"! And I do believe it was started with that ethos properly in mind. Another one that comes to mind is, believe it or not, IKEA. IKEA used to be very good, and pretty expensive. But I think that all such high-minded projects, especially once the founder becomes less involved, become subject to the "optimisation" of capitalism. The next CEO after the founder steps down might not be quite so high-minded, and the process known as "quality fade" begins.

tylerrobinson 7y ago

May I ask why “minimal branding” is so appealing to you, in addition to being superlatively well made?

hug 7y ago
For two reasons. The first is that I dislike the idea of being a walking advertisement. The second is that frankly I find most brand logos to be somewhat tacky. Branding is fine if it is considered, but most simply isn't. If you make something well enough, people who love your gear for its quality will shout about it from the rooftops.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  Part of the reason it’s hard to find good white label clothing is that you’re not advertising for them when you wear their product.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jbc1 7y ago
  If you're talking about clothing, the unbranded/no logo high quality option is bespoke tailoring. Or just unbranded mediocre stuff off the shelf and then tailored to fit.

staticautomatic 7y ago

I've always wanted a minimalist Dean and DeLuca meets Trader Joe's.

darkerside 7y ago

If you're really spending that much on quality materials and craftsmanship, why not spend a tiny bit more overhead to effectively market it? That's why judging based on marketing is actually rational.

skat20phys 7y ago
I'm actually very opposed to visible branding on a lot of things, especially clothing. At first I felt like I was being a little obsessive-compulsive but then eventually realized it's an ethical issue for me. Every time someone puts on a garment with a logo, they're being used to serve the interests of the corporation and not their own interests in a tiny way. The fact that this seems so natural says a lot about the state of our society in this regard. As for your argument, I think it's reasonable but I would turn it on its head: to me every bit of money that's going into visible branding in some way is a signal that the company is putting effort into advertising itself on the outside of the clothing rather than improving quality. I can think of a couple of companies I buy from whose quality has declined in the last couple of decades overall in certain regards, and it's been directly associated with an increase in visible branding on their goods. Basically they started cashing in on their reputation, focusing on their brand identity rather than the quality of their items. Judging from comments in various places I'm not alone in the sense their quality has declined. My impression is actually that it is not difficult to find minimally branded high-quality goods in many areas. In fact, the highest quality goods in a some areas are those with minimal or no branding. I admit there are also many areas, like athletic wear, where this isn't usually the case. On the other hand, I've often noticed that if you actually compare some types of very high end activewear to less expensive variants, the difference is often just the logos. You're in effect paying more to have the logos off rather than less. I personally feel that companies should be shamed out of including visible logos on their clothing. Maybe we're talking about different things though. I do think having brand identifiers of some sort somewhere is important, as it increases accountability. And some things that are likely to be shuffled away, like laundry detergent, I don't really care about. But things that are likely to be out and about? Especially on you as a person? Brand visibility shouldn't be a factor imho.
- 7y ago

bobthepanda 7y ago

So a non-food version of Trader Joe's own-label products?

hug 7y ago
I've never seen a Trader Joe's in my life, so I'm going to go with a very firm maybe.

veeralpatel979 7y ago

> Unfortunately, finding these kinds of products is hard, and I don't quite understand why. I'll reckon a guess: most companies aspire to differentiate themselves and retain customers by building brands. The alternative is race-to-the-lowest-price commodification and continual, cutthroat competition.

duhi88 7y ago

I'm a fan of these sorts of brands, too. I'd guess these products are hard to find because they don't show the same year after year growth you'd see with heavily marketed brands. Not the kind of returns a VC firm is going to want, anyway. You need a stable brand, stable products, and patient owners. --- You might be interested in N0-AD suncare, which does only sunscreen. I've https://no-ad.com/ https://no-ad.com/

andy800 7y ago

Second mention of Muji I've seen on HN this week. Just about everything Muji is absolutely terrific, even many of their plastic products.