Channel Blurring: National Brands at Hard Discounters

Hard discounters are gaining popularity, largely due to their low pricing strategies. Recently, they have begun incorporating more national brands into their assortments, blurring the lines between hard discounters and conventional retailers. This shift presents both opportunities and challenges for national brand manufacturers, hard discounters, and conventional retailers alike. Despite their growing prominence, prior research on national brands at hard discounters remains scarce. This dissertation addresses this gap by studying national brands at hard discounters from three perspectives. The first essay documents the increasing presence of national brands at hard discounters, and investigates differences in the marketing-mix effectiveness of national brands at hard discounters versus conventional retailers. The second essay explores the impact of selling a national brand at hard discounters on the national brand’s equity. The third essay examines how conventional retailers adjust national brand prices in response to hard discounters’ national-brand listings and evaluates whether these adjustments are justified from a sales preservation point of view. While each essay comes with its own conclusions and recommendations, the final chapter combines these findings to offer synthesized managerial implications for the three key stakeholders involved: national brand manufacturers, hard discounters, and conventional retailers. Finally, this dissertation concludes by offering potential avenues for future research.