"Back to school" gap of 40% between most expensive and cheapest stores.

The war for the scholars has broken down in the shops. Schoolbags and pencases are swiftly being sold, as reported by Comeos: licensed products are still doing will, but own brands’ popularity is strongly increasing. Test-Aankoop advises the consumer to compare, because the price differences between the chain stores mount up to 40% and even 243% for the cheap entry-level items.

Consumer organization Test-Aankoop has composed a list of 41 branded products and compared the prices from that basket among different Belgian chains. The chain store Trafic, particularly actif in Wallonia, was cheapest. Followed by Multi Bazar and Colruyt. The price difference among Trafic and the most expensive chains, Fun and Club mounted to almost 40%.   

The consumer organization also composed a list of 43 products of which they noted down the cheapest alternative, regardless of the brand. Action was in this segment the absolute leader, followed by Trafic (67% more expensive than Action) and Cora (115% more expensive).

Although licensed products keep doing really well, chain stores who produce and sell their own collection have determined that parents are attaching more and more attention to the best price-quality ratio. In that way distribution brands’ popularity increases, even if they don’t have the drawing of a popular action figure.

This translated summary was adapted from the following article: http://bit.ly/S03ZIZ