Hey everyone! I am in time for the #marketfriday initiative by Hive account@dswigle. This time, I’d love to discuss product preference, Name brand Or Generic Groceries. This caught my attention the other week when I was grocery shopping with my aunt and her children. Her daughter kept trying to get things and put it on the cart while mentioning about the advertisements that she’s seeing on social media. “ Don’t buy it because you’re influenced by social media ads” my aunt sort of scolded my niece because she kept putting random things into the cart and told how she saw it on instagram and tiktok.

From there, I feel like sometimes I fall into the same marketing targeted ads as I often try things just because I saw it somewhere and was intrigued to try it. Often I use things just because it's a name brand, with a big marketing behind it. More often than not, name brands would cost slightly more than the generic brands. Although when it comes to the quality, it’s definitely still up to a good debate. For example, sometimes I am surprised by its taste(if it’s food), quality, and effectiveness (if it’s things). However, since I’ve been reflecting that my grocery shopping habit has been largely influenced by the idea that expensive is better, I started to change my ways to shop especially when I am trying to save up a lot more and being the sole breadwinner of my family.

_{*Note that name brand and generic brands in each country would be different.}

The definition of a generic brand is something that I refer from Investopedia,

consumer product on the market that lacks a widely recognized name or logo because it typically isn't advertised.

Is Name Brand always better or is it a myth?

When you have the option to choose between both, it means you can afford it. Sometimes though, I learned from my mom that brands don’t matter at all, what matters is the cost. When she doesn’t have that much option, she would go with the generic brands, the cheapest and as long as it works. I heard the same thing from a few people I know and I still remember a lot of my friends who were saving up, would choose the generic options rather than a name brand option.

Though, I have to say that there are things in life in which I personally think name brand does it better. There are things that I am willing to trade just to have that name brand products. For example, coffee beans. I wouldn’t just go with the most generic coffee beans I’ve encountered even if that means, I need to sacrifice something for it. Here, the common coffee beans would be from excelso and anything that can be found on the shelves of supermarkets. But a name brand would be a lot different and often they’re only available in a specific store.

Another thing I tested was a name brand cat food such as whiskas. They didn’t really like it and even when I bought expensive cat food such as royal canin, they also didn’t really like it. In fact, they preferred a generic brand and less known cat food brand. I still find it odd but if that means also saving a lot of costs, then why not?

There are things in life that just simply work even if you don’t buy a well-known brand such as rice, oil, sugar, and salt, or even spices. In a supermarket you would see a lot of products that technically serve the same purpose however, often we’re blinded by marketing, influenced by others to pick a brand that we’re more familiar with and often heard of. In Indonesia, there are dozens of rice brands but with a blind test, it’s really difficult to tell the difference. A generic one vs a pretty one packaging would taste the same for me.

However, I would argue that when it comes to skin care, a generic brand from the store or even a great value one isn’t always better. I generally have more problems with those than the name brand ones. I know that they’re cheaper but they’re also a few things that I wouldn’t buy randomly and settle for the generic ones.

Another one that’s up to debate is snacks. There are knock off oreos, lays and wafers but sometimes they taste as good as the real ones. But if you’re really particular on snacking, these knock off generic brands would definitely not be up to your par.So, in my opinion, there are things in life that name brand that does it better but also generic ones that just works and serves its purpose.

Afterall is it all worth it?

Maybe it is! I don’t know about you but in the pursuit of saving money, I don’t mind going with generic and great value especially. Let me know what you think below!