It’s sort of new! And not at all improved! But it is less expensive. We’re talking about Procter & Gamble’s Tide Basic, a detergent that’s been rolled out in about 100 stores in the South. Quite plainly, it’s a cheaper product. It doesn’t have the same cleaning capabilities of the regular Tide, though it does cost about 20 percent less.
According to the WSJ, P&G has turned to Tide Basic as a reaction to poor sales, and those poor sales are basically the result of the recession—and its fostering of a new breed of vigilant, more money-conscious consumers:
Many people for the first time are clipping coupons, trying cheaper brands and buckling down in ways they never had to before. Economists aren’t sure how long the trend will last. But a recent report from IRI identified a new class of fiscally cautious consumers. Some 52% of respondents said that in the coming year they plan to buy store brands to save money; 47% plan to eat at restaurants less frequently; and 48% plan to use home beauty treatments rather than visit a salon.
One woman quoted in the story, who recently bought shampoo for $5 rather than the $17 a bottle she’d been accustomed to buying, says, “Buying the more expensive stuff just isn’t as exciting to me—it’s not that important. I don’t know that you can even tell the difference.”
In a related note, I recently received an e-mail from Earth Friendly Products, an eco-friendly company that produces a range of cleaning products—and a company that is announcing across-the-board price reductions of up to 15 percent.
All this competition obviously indicates that many businesses can expect small (if any) profit margins for quite some time. What we might see soon is a Darwinian survival of the fittest on the shelves of supermarket shelves everywhere. But honestly, aren’t those shelves overstocked, with more options than any consumer really needs?
Regardless, it’s good to be a consumer of late, with all these suitors vying for our attention, and one price slashing after another.