Safeway offers consumers several private label brands at variable rates of cost savings. The Safeway SELECT brand encompasses a wide variety of products marketed not necessarily as high-end items but as high-quality ones such as their water crackers. The water crackers are packaged in rectangular tubes with a single row of the round biscuits. Like the Carr's brand they mimic, the Safeway SELECT water cracker package is black and may be touted as an apt party cracker to carry cheese and other deli selections. Like Safeway, Wal-Mart has launched several popular private labels. One of Wal-Mart's most successful private labels is the Equate brand, which offers an almost comprehensive line of heath and beauty products. Equate Ibuprofin can easily be compared with Advil, one of the more popular national brands. Unlike the Advil package, the Equate name is printed relatively small on the box of 200mg pills. However, the Equate logo is ubiquitous in Wal-Mart stores and is as recognizable and even as eye-catching as Advil's or Motrin's.
             One of the key consumer draws of private label branding, if not the key draw, is price. At the time of this research Carr's water crackers were on sale for $2.89. The Safeway SELECT water crackers were regularly priced at $2.79. The on-sale price for Carr's is only ten cents more than the private label brand, practically negating any real cost savings. However, the regular price on the Carr's brand of crackers is $3.25, increasing the price difference considerably and making the private label brand far more attractive to price-conscious consumers.
             The price difference between Advil and Equate was more dramatic. A box of 80 liqui-gels costs $12.99 at Wal-Mart. The same size box of Equate liqui-gels cost $8.99. Many consumers would find the difference compelling enough to try Equate. At the same time, consumers are more likely to be suspicious of a private label pharmacy item than of a private label box of cr...