The private-label takeover

0:00Welcome back to another episode of The Curious Consumer. I'm Nate. I'm Jenna. And we're back with another episode. For those who don't know us yet, we run a media company called Express Checkout. It's a bi-weekly newsletter every Monday and Friday talking about the latest food and bev, beauty and wellness, skincare and retail news and trends. I think I got everything there. I think you hit them all. I think I did. And we had a lighter week this week in news and things happening because it was just Thanksgiving. Happy and Merry Thanksgiving to you, Jenna. Happy and Merry to you as well. Is that what the people say?

0:39I don't know. I like putting Merry in front of other things. I think it's very funny. We really don't use the word Merry enough. No, we're two choose. We should use that as a way to replace some of the words that are overused in press releases. Instead of saying game-changing, new launch, it should be a Merry New Launch. A Merry New Launch. If you're watching, I have a different background and i'm really sad because i'm not gonna have my really pretty i'd like this orange and green background this really cool room i was in and i have a white wall you should paint it should paint it and unfortunately it's not my room it's my boyfriend's room in princeton new jersey so yeah soon i have a feeling it won't change from white to another color but there might be like a periodic table or something hanging behind me soon we also pre-recording just discovered that Nate and I both have this, I guess I'll call it a fidget toy.

1:33It's a fidget toy. It's going viral with like Gen Alpha on TikTok or something. And us. And us. I bet it's mostly adults who use this, but I love this thing. It's called Neato and it's like a stress ball, but it's really fun to play with. And Nate was like, I got this new thing called Neato. And I literally, without saying any words, just picked up mine, which was right in front of me because it always is. This is the happiest I've ever been. Is this a consumer package good? This is a consumer package. I mean, I'm not going to eat it, but. I don't intend to. I don't intend to put it on my face either, but it's really fun to play with.

2:07It's so much fun. Wow. We had a fun week. We had a fun and crazy week because we took it upon ourselves to put out seven gift guides, which no one asked for, actually. No. No one asked for, but everybody who responded to the emails or texted me about it were very happy. People really liked them. People really liked them. Yeah, I have this thing. So I worked in PR for five years and I have noticed that every single brand unsurprisingly wants to be featured on a gift guide, but so many brands just aren't actually giftable. Unfortunately not. I don't want a supplement for the holidays. I don't want a protein bar for the holidays.

2:48So we were like, that's most of what we cover, but we also just have interesting finds. Like we come across cool, small brands, especially Nate, you do. So we decided to put them together into what I'm calling highly specific, actually giftable gift guides. Highly specific because we made each of them for a very specific recipient. Some examples are for the 20 to 30 something year old man child in your life. For the mom or aunt or female friend who doesn't want anything but your presence. We know that all too well. We didn't know that one too well. For the Hobby Hopper, that was actually my favorite.

3:28I think everyone knows a Hobby Hopper. That was good. Which one was my favorite? This most recent one was really fun. This one was, yeah, I liked the recent one. I called it for the person who unironically wants the Bottega Veneta Jenga set. Yes. Which, for those who don't know, Bottega Veneta is a designer. And they came out with a collaboration with Jenga for$6 ,900. Jeez. Just for a leather encased Jenga set. And so we were like, if somebody earnestly wants this, they're a bougie friend. So we found some bougie slash like affordable versions of something bougie. Yeah. Yes. We just had some really fun, unique finds in our gift guides.

4:12So if you haven't checked them out yet, you totally should. I will say you probably missed some sales. Some sales, but we have a good range of pricing and prices on there. And honestly, I've been getting emails for Cyber Week. Black Friday is the holiday that never ends. I spent so much. I spent so much. Did you? Yeah, I got a lot of good gifts. Look, I will say this year I felt like there were actually good deals. Like deals that I was like, oh, okay. You know what? For this retailer, that is a good deal. You're not the only person who thought that because this was one of the biggest Black Friday Cyber Mondays.

4:49Oh, no, it was the biggest Black Friday Cyber Monday in history. I think those numbers are obviously going to be skewed partly because inflation. So it should be getting bigger every year. There's no reason that those numbers shouldn't be getting bigger every year. But the numbers are pretty staggering, I would say. Yeah. I also think like, I don't know, when I'm sad, I like to shop because I like to receive a little package in the mail. And maybe a lot of us are distraught and buying things to make us less distraught. But let's hear some of these numbers. Overall, Black Friday in the U.S. did about$12 billion.

5:2711.8. We'll round it up to 12, which is crazy. Cyber Monday in the U.S., about$14 billion. Nuts. I can't even conceptualize that number. No. And Shopify also released some data for Black Friday. And globally, this number was global, sales per minute reached its peak at 12.01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. 5.1 million sales per minute. It's crazy. Globally. But still, that is nuts. That is so crazy. So much just being spent. I mean, we just have no understanding of this. It's crazy. I mean, the other reason that it's not surprising that people spend more money than ever is because it's so frictionless.

6:15It's so easy. It used to be a lot harder to drop that much in any given minute, and now you can. Not only because of infrastructure like Shopify, which just makes it completely frictionless, or Amazon or whatever, but also because of payment structures like Buy Now, Pay Later. Oh, my God. The fact that this rose in usage from Black Friday last year, that's both cool from like an industry perspective, but also like I'm really concerned on what the buy now, pay later was used for. It's actually kind of concerning the rise in buy now, pay later. It's debt enablement. Yes. I don't know what else you call that.

6:59Yes, it makes things more accessible for people. And it sounds really nice for a consumer who's like, I can't afford that right now, but I can do a buy now, pay later option. Yay for more payment options. But also it is concerning that likely people are using this because they don't have that exact amount of money in their account right now. So buy now, pay later, yeah, was up almost 9 % year over year. Yeah. There's a lot of infrastructure around buy now, pay later now. Anytime I check out on shop using shop pay or whatever, they're like, oh, you can actually buy now, pay later this. And obviously Shopify and all these, they make money on the buy now, pay later.

7:37That is why it's so prevalent and relatively easy to lock into is because you're hoping just like a credit card, you're hoping someone kind of won't make a payment and you get the interest on that. But it also helps with encouraging people to buy more and buy outside of their means. It's this give and take situations. It's very interesting to see that growth. No, definitely. And buy not pay later options were most utilized when shopping on mobile devices, according to the same source, Adobe Analytics, which again makes a lot of sense to me. I think impulse purchases happen more on a mobile device and mobile drove 80.7 % share usage versus desktop on Black Friday.

8:15So people are shopping on mobile. If you don't have a mobile optimized store, you are not getting sales. which is also to say that store traffic was down on Black Friday. Again, unsurprising. That's just like how people shop these days. I think there's been a lot of rhetoric around people are going back to brick and mortar because online stores are so oversaturated. And yes, there is some of that, but for the most part, just consumer shopping habits have changed. We're not going to go into the store in the same way. It might be up a little by comparison to years prior. Still not a win for in-store traffic.

8:48And the other thing that was a big win for Black Friday was AI. People were shopping with AI. Of course they were. We knew that was going to happen. Apparently it was up over 800 % year over year. Again, really unsurprising just because I don't even think that AI tools were really able to help with shopping in the way that they are now. They certainly didn't have the partnerships with Shopify and Etsy the way that ChatGPT slash OpenAI does now. So that's unsurprising. But again, this is like a few days that are massive indicators for what the next year of online shopping will look like. So it's worth paying attention to.

9:23Yeah. I think a lot of holiday shopping now and definitely next year will be done through AI. And everybody should instead go to our gift guides because they're not AI and we put a lot of love into them. I also want to talk about some of the stats that Shopify shared with us about their trend the top trending products yes that was interesting i thought it was very interesting and not too surprising but it's just like cool to see which ones they were so ilia beauty's super serum skin tint was one of the top trending products on shopify brooklinen's super plush robe which we actually had on our gift guide bases the weekender caraway home's cookware set which I have the stainless steel behind me.

10:08Caraway has been crushing it. Chilling it. Killing it. I have the bar set too. I really want to get their Tupperware set, which looks pretty nice. Aloe Yoga's crew neck pullover and Cozy Earth's bamboo sheet set. A good selection of stuff. A lot of like, let me take care of myself products. Absolutely. Let me cook for myself. Athleisure. A lot of these products are wellness adjacent. So as much as we say that people don't want to buy supplements for gifts, they do want to buy them during the holiday season when they're on sale. I actually really like how wellness has expanded beyond just supplements, that it is like a robe.

10:47It is a set of sheets. It's expanded beyond just like the traditional wellness products to mean a lot more. And it means taking care of yourself and being cozy too, which I think is great. Yeah. I mean, we're only one day out from Cyber Monday, so we don't really know the results of Cyber Monday yet. But I don't think it's going to tell us anything we don't know. I think we will find out that shoppers use AI more than ever. I think we will see numbers that are bigger than ever. I think we will see that companies that won did actually meaningful sales, have something that made them a little different, a gift with purchase, exclusive drops.

11:24Like, those will be the winners. I don't think we're going to be surprised by any of this, really. but it's still fun and exciting to report on. We don't really talk about e-commerce that much on the podcast. We cover it in the newsletter but we don't really talk about it that much in the podcast because honestly it can be a smidge dry, a smidge repetitive. But it is really interesting to see how consumers' shopping habits are changing and again, I feel like Black Friday, Cyber Monday is like a microcosm of what the rest of next year will look like. Yeah, it's a sneak peek for sure. Let's get into our next story.

11:57So Quince, the luxury at cost retailer, e-tailer, really, they don't have any physical locations. They just launched their gourmet food and wines marketplace. So they're coming with Dom Perignon, they're coming with truffles, and then their own branded caviar. The other products they're launching are not their own brands. It's Dom Perignon champagne and the alpha truffles as well. I'm curious to see how this goes for them. They have some other CPG adjacent products. They have electrolyte powders. They have some candles and stuff. But this is like their real first foray into sort of food and beverage.

12:35Yeah. So for context, Quinces, mostly they have been known for apparel, for affordable luxury apparel. Quince kind of got its name for being like, we offer dupes, basically. Yeah, very explicitly. Of luxury apparel, accessories, homeware. And that's really what they've been known for. They're kind of the Mongolian cashmere sweater. Like that was their product. I think definitely like a gateway product for a lot of consumers to discover the website. Be like, oh, I can actually buy a cashmere sweater for under$100. They get in the door and then they're like, I can buy a lot of luxury things for a cheaper price.

13:13We have done a deep dive before on luxury dupes, specifically surrounding quince. And we can link that in the show notes. So we won't go too far into it. But Quince is a really interesting retailer for a number of reasons. Oh, yeah. They have a lot of unknowns tied to them, I will say. Many people have called them out for a lot of reasons. We don't really understand a lot about their sourcing. Basically, they say that the reason they can make things so accessible is because it's manufacturer to consumer. They're skipping the middleman. But even still, there's some confusion around how these products could be manufactured and sold at this price and they would still make money.

13:58So there's some questions around their labor practices, around their claims of sustainability. Definitely some potential greenwashing going on. And they've also been sued a number of times by retailers whose products they are duping. Right. And are making claims about their products as well, which Williams-Sonoma just sued them. deckers who owns the ug brand they also got sued but that that got dropped recently the williams sonoma one's a new one so there's a lot there as for their food and wine launch they actually did launch the caviar last year as like a test yeah and just brought it back under this food and wine marketplace said marketplace as nate said has three items so it's not really much of a marketplace yet although their press release indicates that they hope to be expanding into i think it was like single origin teas and olive oils in the next year so they're trying to maintain this luxury positioning while expanding to different categories if they are trying to just be like a dupe of other luxury retailers it makes sense that they're doing this we're seeing companies like the Rowe, which is an apparel company, sell chips in their store.

15:14So like part of luxury and these like lifestyle brands is food and beverage. And it makes sense that they would want to tap into these categories. I'm curious for the products that they'll be bringing on going forward, how many of them will bear the Quince name and how many of them will bear the luxury brand name? Because obviously Dom Perignon is not Quince. It's Dom Perignon. Right. And that one might be just related to the production and control of the champagne industry, where if they want to call it Dom Perignon, it's Dom Perignon. There is no, you can't really dupe it because Dom Perignon is Dom Perignon.

15:52It's where it's made. There's all this stuff around champagne and wine as well. But I mean, Trader Joe's did it. They did a great job. So it's all about the sourcing and it's all about then the promotional side of things and making people know that like, hey, this is from the same vineyard. This is from the same batch we bought at auction, whatever it is. Like I'm very curious to see how they handle this food and beverage line going forward. And also who they're going to compare to. Because I don't know how many people who are shopping on Quince necessarily know luxury food and beverage. Are they going to compare it to Toli?

16:27Are they going to compare it to Graza? They're going to compare it to Flamingo Estates. What side of luxury are they going to lean into? That is what I'm actually really interested in, in this food and beverage launch for them. I'm just curious if they'll actually do it. It's a different game. Food and beverage is such a different game than apparel. It's such a different game. I mean, it's a marketplace. It's not a brand. It's more like it's adopting the mindset of an Amazon. It's not trying to be Everlane, which is just apparel. And I think people kind of thought of these brands as kind of similar because Everlane has actual verified sustainability claims, but it's like a sustainable apparel brand that feels a little bit more like getting your basics, which is what Quince tries to be.

17:13But I think Quince is actually trying to be compared more to an Amazon. I think it wants to be an Amazon. I think it wants to be a marketplace, but a marketplace of just dupes, not branded items. Very few private brands. So like the Dom Perignon is an exception here, I would say. And I think they're going to try and take over in a lot of categories because why not? Because shoppers are used to behaving in that way in adding a sweater and tea to one car. That's what they do on Amazon. And look, there is a ton of money. They're getting known by consumers all over. I know that my parents have bought some stuff from Quince.

17:51My mom is obsessed. Yeah. And they like it. I mean, generally, it seems to be very decent quality products. And look, it's at a reasonable price. People are price conscious. This is why private label has done so well is because they want something quality at a decent price. Not everybody is always so gung-ho about brand, which is why Target's private label brands do$40 billion a year. like because one target has put a lot of effort into making these these private label brands look really nice and feel really good and have good quality ingredients and then also be at a good price and that's what people want people care about brand i'm not saying they don't they care more about the aesthetic i think especially when the price is right right and if you can't compete with quince on price and the actual product you're gonna have to be putting a lot of money into education because I do think the one hole that we can poke at quince is sustainability and labor.

18:50We just, it doesn't seem to, we don't know enough. There seems to be some concerns around that. And for brands that can't be fully transparent about those things, theoretically, consumers could care about paying a little bit more for that, but you need to educate them. It's not something they're going to come to on their own. It's not something I would come to on my own. It's really hard to get consumers to change their mind when quality and price is in a good place. Yeah. It's a really weird retailer and - It's fascinating. Positioned for takeover, for sure. Do you know what retailer is taking over?

19:26Oh. And is also Aldi. I sure do. Dupes and private label. Aldi. Aldi baby. I've only been to Aldi once in my life. Really? I know, But apparently I'm about to go to many Aldi's because they're opening so many. They're opening so many across New York City as well. Yes. They're opening up a 25 ,000 square foot one just outside of Times Square. Which is a wild location and kind of interesting. Aldi's whole shtick is that they are 90 % private label. So their whole, the store is just dupes. It's something that looks like Oreos, but isn't Oreos. in fact they have been sued by Montelise for that reason recently for a couple products that I will say they look a little similar they look very similar um they take existing packaged goods and they make them in their private label and they make them pretty cheap because they're not paying for brand the actual store experience also if you've only been to Aldi once maybe you don't remember it's it's like Costco in that it's just like industrial like shelves but it's mini Costco it's worse yeah like costco has samples no it's like really barebought like it's like not merchandised in a pretty way and that's because they don't need to because you're not it's not brands that are like no paying to be at eye level it's all their brand there aren't that many different choices because it's all their brand like it is a very simple store concept It almost, to me, feels like shopping at, what are those called?

21:02Like the Little Tykes? Is that what it's called? Oh my God, that's so funny. Like at the toy. Yeah. Like a toy grocery store that you get for kids and they like pretend to check out with their plastic fruit and vegetables. Like that is what shopping at an Aldi feels like. I wonder if that is a less stressful experience for consumers though. Yeah, there's less to choose between. Which is why Trader Joe's does so well, because instead of 50 ,000 mayos, there's one mayo. Right. And maybe a seasonal varietal. But it makes it a lot easier. And that's also why they can make it so much less expensive.

21:41I mean, even Trader Joe's, though, has a few brands. Aldi being 90 % is pretty staggering. Aldi owns Trader Joe's, by the way. So that model didn't come from nowhere. Aldi has been really successful in Europe. So they're opening thousands of stores in the U.S. And it's making them, this blew my mind. The number of stores doesn't really mean anything to me. Because I'm like, I don't know how many store, like how many Kroger stores there are. Like those numbers don't mean much to me. But what means something to me is that it will be the third largest grocery retailer. So there's Walmart, duh, Kroger, and then Aldi will be the third largest, third most stores in the U.S.

22:21And right now, like, I mean, I don't even know if my parents know what Aldi is and they're gonna soon because it's going to be everywhere. So I think it's worth talking about. Obviously, we've mentioned private label is going to be a big reason why this is taking over. But why? People are price conscious. Like, I think it's a mixture of that. It's a mixture of certain key retailers and brands doing private labels so well for such a long time that it's keyed in consumers to be like oh this is probably fine trader joe's and target have crushed crushed private label period one trader joe's trade joe's we all know trader joe's yeah but they have given people they've educated the consumer that like oh this like random name brand thing could be pretty good and target has done that with a lot of their their different private label brands they have like 35 or something um walmart just introduced better goods, which has become one of the fastest growing private label brands on the market.

23:22And it's more of this, it's more akin to like a, like a target good and gather one of their higher end private label brands better than like a, like a great value, which is Walmart's more, more lower end private label brand. I think, especially as Gen Z consumers are starting to be more in the workforce and they're just living their, their best life, not being able to ever buy a house or ever pay off student loan debts. So these private label brands are very appealing because you can get the vibe oftentimes of a non-private label brand, but at a much better price. And it's very enticing. People buy what's cheaper.

24:01Absolutely. Of course. No, I think your point though on the premiumization of private label is a really good one though. And it's interesting that they kind of went all in on Trader Joe's in the US before bringing Aldi in in a major way. I actually have the stats up here that Trader Joe's draws higher salary individuals, usually around 110K household income, while Aldi is more interested in the 75 ,000 median household income. So they are looking to a lower income household. And it kind of makes sense that Trader Joe's would be here, prove out that it's cool, it's aspirational to shop private label when private label is given this like premium spin.

24:44And then Aldi comes in even less expensive and can rely on the fact that Trader Joe's already made it cool and made it cool with a wealthier demographic. It's not just like, oh no, this is the only option. It's more, this is like also an exciting option. I think the other thing that makes brands like Aldi or just these private label retailers do so well is there becomes this like discovery aspect to it that's really exciting to younger consumers and does really well on social. So something like an all defined section of Reddit that people are really active on. And on social media, people love to like scout out, oh, I found this dupe that's like a perfect dupe for this.

25:31And like that discovery element. Yeah, it's huge. really translates really well to social, which has made the demographic skew younger than I think Aldi initially expected in the US and continues to skew younger. The discovery piece about just brands in general is so huge. People want to feel like they've done something, they've discovered something. And when they discover something that's great and it's at a lower price, it's such a powerful driver of growth and organic growth too. So it gets embedded in everybody's mind. It's like, oh i should go to all day i should go find that cool thing and get my the rest of my groceries while i'm at it that's a really good point the discovery piece i think is probably going to be their biggest driver i mean it is with trader joe's people love posting oh this is great this is great dude well it's definitely worth checking out on aldi i would say and you know get into the discovery element of it it can be really fun to be like to buy a real pack of oreos and an aldi pack of oreos and see if you can tell what's different like it's great i get i get why that has viral potential and it's also just more affordable groceries which we could all use more of agreed um let's move on to our last story about monogram capital which is a private equity fund in la they just closed a 350 million dollar fund three but monogram is a very notable consumer brand investor they've invested in olipop they've invested in archer meat sticks which We'll put it up on the screen, but if you go to like a 7-Eleven, you know it.

27:00They've invested in Dia Senderga, the perfume and scent company, Chewy.com. And they also just acquired Lucky Scent, which operates the scent bar locations. So they're a very prolific CPG and consumer brand investor. And it's very cool to see how many of these funds are raising such big funds to invest in CPG and consumer. I just think it's a category that needs more capital infusion. And clearly it's a category that's growing because the Wall Street Journal, they had an article back in October, but they just made a video that went viral a couple days ago about how emerging startup brands are outpacing the rest of old school CPG.

27:40I mean, this is something we've been talking about. I know when that article came out, we mentioned it as well. But it is interesting to your point, like we're seeing a lot of funds raise capital. We haven't seen that all deployed yet. No. So we will see in 2026 where it gets deployed. But safe to say there's going to be more money flowing into CPG and into emerging CPG. I don't think there are necessarily more new brands, but the visibility for emerging brands has increased so much, mostly thanks to social. And shoppers are, I think, more interested than ever in trying some of these emerging brands.

28:18Like the stories of founders are resonating more and more. Again, the discovery element of trying a new brand and the numbers prove it because they're outpacing the big guys. Also, retailers, I think, are starting again to take more bets on emerging brands. Obviously, Sprouts has their innovation set. But even I've heard internally at Target and Walmart, they are trying to bring on new innovation and new brands. A mix of like some of the well-funded new brands out there, but also some of just like the normal new brands that are somewhat exciting and somewhat different. because I think people are also going to these places for discovery and also the Targets and the Walmarts of the world.

28:55They're always trying to beef up their grocery options because it gets people in the door to potentially buy the other stuff, but it's a habit. It makes the retailer a habitual place. So I think that's also why that retailers are pushing some of these more emerging brands is you need new stuff to get people in the door. And these brands, to your point, are doing a lot on social media to also push people to those retail stores that they're being sold in. I do, however, think over that maybe over the next few years, As there's more money coming in, barring any crazy economic shutdown, there could be more brands because there are a lot of tools out there for people to build their brands on.