NATIONAL BRANDS AND PRIVATE LABELS IN THE FMCG INDUSTRY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry is enormous, it encompasses dozens of remarkably diverse categories and sub-categories, but it is often treated as a whole. Despite a broad body of research, findings are often of narrow use, as it is hard to extend them across different categories and countries. On top of that, the industry in the recent years has been rapidly evolving and saw radical changes happening. Many were coming from outside its boundaries and were global trends, such as the growth of e-commerce, an increasing awareness towards sustainability and demographic changes, but a huge disruption was coming from within the industry, from the main clients of manufacturers producing these goods: retailers stared selling private labels (PLs). This changed everything in the industry, as an ally also became a competitor, and the practices upon which an old industry had been working for several decades were challenged.