Buying Store Brand vs. Name Brand

Choosing to buy store brand vs. name brand can be a tough decision, especially if you aren’t quite sure what a store brand is. We’re here to let you know how to earn points on store brand and name brand groceries, what a store brand is and the benefits of buying both name brand and store brand.

Earn Fetch Points on both store brand and name brand

Whether or not you’ve chosen a side in the store brand vs. name brand debate, you can easily earn points with every grocery run. Here’s how to earn points grocery shopping with Fetch:

• Snap each receipt in the app
• Shop from available Fetch offers
• Choose Boosted brands
• Do your grocery shopping using Fetch Shop

Each of these earns you points, which you can redeem for free gift cards. Spend them on next week’s groceries or treat yourself to dinner out, a movie or a new video game.

What is a store brand?

A store brand (sometimes called “generic brand” or “private brand”) is a product made and sold under the name of a specific retailer, designed to compete with brand-name products. Many stores have their own brands: Jewel Osco has Signature, Target has Good & Gather, Costco has Kirkland Signature.

How is it that Target or Costco or Jewel Osco is able to make all different kinds of milk, raise livestock for meats and even make products like paper towels and batteries? The answer is they don’t: store brands are made by known brands for the retailers to sell on their own.

Benefits of buying store brand vs. name brand 

Savings is one of the biggest benefits of buying store brand vs. name brand. You can see it at a glance, as most store brands are shelved right next to their name brand counterparts: the store brand is usually cheaper.

With the name brand, you’re paying for the name, which includes paying for national or even worldwide-level advertising and distribution. Store brands show up in your store’s ads and not much else.

Benefits of buying name brand vs. store brand 

The biggest benefit of buying name brand vs. store brand is familiarity. 

Your favorite General Mills cereal is going to taste the same next week, and it probably tastes the same as it did when you were a kid. If you have a craving for Ben & Jerry’s, an unbranded generic pint isn’t going to do it.

Choosing a name brand over a store brand means you know that the Sargento cheese you buy from Jewel Osco is the same Sargento cheese you’ll find at Target. The generic suppliers for different grocery stores might be different, and you might discover you don’t like one store brand’s cheese or tortilla chips.

Is it cheaper to buy name brands?

One of the advantages of buying store brands over name brands is that they’re cheaper, but this isn’t always true.

• It’s not common, but sometimes there’s a notable drop in quality. This is usually in non-food items like paper towels, toilet paper and batteries.
• Name brands frequently offer discounts that put them below the price of the store brand equivalent. 
• Buying name brand products opens the door to even more rewards in the Fetch app.

How to earn rewards on name brands with Fetch

One of the biggest benefits of buying name brand vs. store brand is getting access to all of the available name brand offers in the Fetch app. Here’s how to get the most out of Fetch offers:

1. Open the app when making your grocery list.
2. Choose a brand with an offer for as many items as you can.
3. “Like” offers by tapping the heart icon.
4. Once at the store, open up the Fetch app and use it as your shopping list: just filter for the heart icon.

You can earn even more on offers by shopping for Boosted brands (the bigger the flame, the bigger the boost).

If you’re committed to going with store brands, you can also find offers for shopping at specific locations, like Target or Jewel Osco. And doing your grocery shopping in Fetch Shop earns you points for each dollar spent, which means even those store brands can help you earn rewards.

Find name brand offers in the Fetch App

Snapping your receipt is the first step toward free gift cards from Fetch, but you can really amp things up by shopping available offers in the app. Even if you’re a store brand devotee, you’re sure to find some good offers on name brand alternatives; give them a shot and get rewarded for it!