What: Consumers are turning to private-label brands to ease the impact of high prices this holiday season.

Why it is important: Target last week noted that shoppers are trading down to owned brands, which continue to outperform their national counterparts by growing twice as fast as total business in Q3.

In addition to often being cheaper, private labels can also fill in product white space in underserved markets, such as women’s activewear. Kohl’s reported that more middle-income consumers are trading down to its private label brands leading the CFO to say the retailer will feature its owned brands more prominently in its marketing.

Walmart’s penetration in the private brand sector has been flat since 2019 but picked up in March of this year with private brand penetration in the food category having increased about 130 basis points in Q3.

Retailers report private labels were boosted by inflation