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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2837 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 17, 2023

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Why do people buy name brand over generic groceries? They're often identical. Are people just stupid? But it's such a blatant case about which product is better. They'll be identical products, next to each other on the shelf, except one costs about 25% less. The only difference is that the other product has commercials advertising it. I have friends insist that name brand tastes better, but the contents are literally identical.

Example? Even something like milk is usually better with a name brand.

I have a sweet tooth and most notable to me is how there are dollar store brand chocolates that are a third of the price of name brand like Snickers or KitKat, but are identical. If you want actually high quality chocolate you have to pay more, but I'm talking about paying 33 cents instead of a dollar. And the two chocolates will be side by side on the shelf.

Chocolates are one of the items where I almost never see a store brand equivalent, though I don't shop at Dollar General or Dollar Tree or whatever, so maybe I'm missing out.

Costco has excellent store brand baked goods and alcohol, so I would certainly give a KitKat knockoff a try there, but have never seen anything like that. Or Sam's Club, either. I don't live near an Aldi's anymore, but I think their chocolates were German brands.

Trader Joes has good chocolate covered peanut butter and chocolate covered creamy mints, but they are a quite distinct products from Yorkshire peppermint patties or Reeses. Also, I consider Trader Joes a strong enough brand not to classify their products generic.

Trader Joes has excellent store branded chocolate. Or do you mean a knock off version of say a Kit Kat or Neslte Crunch bar?

Yeah, I meant the Dollar Store knock offs.

I haven't looked into whether TJ's chocolate is a better price than other brands, but I just buy it because it's good in general, not necessarily to save money.

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