Throughout your store you carry many nationally branded products sold at every one of your competitor’s stores. Do your customers prefer Hunt’s Ketchup or Heinz Ketchup? It really doesn’t matter to you which brand they buy, as long as they buy it at your store. You can’t help Hunt’s or Heinz differentiate their brands—the only way you can differentiate them is with your shelf price.

It’s a different story in your deli department.