A white-label product is a
product
Product may refer to:
Business
* Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem.
* Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution
Mathematics
* Produ ...
or service produced by one company (the
producer) that other companies (the
marketers
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to empha ...
)
rebrand
Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...
to make it appear as if they had made it.
The name derives from the image of a white label on the
packaging that can be filled in with the marketer's
trade dress. White label products are sold by retailers with their own trademark but the products themselves are manufactured by a
third party.
Common use
White label production is often used for
mass-produced
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
generic products including electronics, consumer products and software packages such as DVD players, televisions, and web applications. Some companies maintain a sub-brand for their goods, for example the same model of DVD player may be sold by
Dixons as a ''
Saisho
Dixons Retail plc was one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the company operated Currys, Currys Digital, PC World (retailer), PC World (with stores increasingly dual branded 'Currys PC World'), Dixo ...
'' and by
Currys as a ''
Matsui'', which are brands exclusively used by those companies.
Some websites use white labels to enable a successful brand to offer a service without having to invest in creating the technology and infrastructure itself. Many IT and modern marketing companies outsource or use white-label companies and services to provide specialist services without having to invest in developing their own product.
Most supermarket
store brand
A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...
products are provided by companies that sell to multiple supermarkets, changing only the labels. In addition, some manufacturers create low-cost
generic brand labels with only the name of the product ("Beer","Cola", etc.).
Richelieu Foods, for example, is a
private label
A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...
food manufacturing company producing frozen pizza, salad dressing, sauces, marinades, condiments, and deli salads for other companies, including
Hy-Vee,
Aldi
Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when ...
,
Save-A-Lot
Save A Lot Food Stores Ltd. is an American discount supermarket chain store headquartered in St. Ann, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis. It is a subsidiary of Onex Corporation with about 900 independently owned and operated stores across 32 st ...
,
Sam's Club
Sam's West, Inc. (doing business as Sam's Club) is an American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Walmart Inc., founded in 1983 and named after Walmart founder Sam Walton as Sam’s Wholesale Club. , Sam's C ...
,
Hannaford Brothers Co.,
BJ's Wholesale Club (Earth's Pride brand), and
Shaw's Supermarkets (Culinary Circle brand).
Smaller
bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Because ...
s sometimes outsource their
credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
or check processing operations to larger banks, which issue and process the credit cards as white label cards, typically for a fee, allowing the smaller bank to brand the cards as their own without having to invest in the necessary infrastructure. For example,
Cuscal Limited provides white label card and transactional products to Credit Unions in Australia;
Simple (formerly BankSimple) issues bank accounts and
debit cards operated by The Bancorp Bank and
BBVA Compass
BBVA USA was a bank headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. It was a subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria from 2007 until 2021, when it was acquired by PNC Financial Services. It operated mainly in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorad ...
in the United States.
In Southern California,
City National Bank is the largest check processor in that half of the state, because in addition to checks issued by its own customers, CNB processed checks for the customers of more than 60 smaller Southern California banks.
Many software companies offer white label software to agencies or other customers, including the possibility to resell the software under the customer’s brand. This typically requires functionalities such as the adaptation of the software’s visual appearance, multi-customer management and automatic billing to the end-customers based on usage parameters.
See also
*
Rebadging
In the automotive industry, rebadging is a form of market segmentation used by automobile manufacturers around the world. To allow for product differentiation without designing or engineering a new model or brand (at high cost or risk), a man ...
*
White box (computer hardware)
In computer hardware, a white box is a personal computer or server without a well-known brand name.
The term is usually applied to systems assembled by small system integrators and to homebuilt computer systems assembled by end users from part ...
*
White label
A white label record is a vinyl record with white labels attached. There are several variations each with a different purpose. Variations include test pressings, white label promos, and plain white labels.
Test pressings
Test pressings, usua ...
*
Private label
A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...
References
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Brand management
Types of branding