Korean Job Discussion Forums

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:05 am Post subject:

I don't get this article. It says Korean in-store brands, yet the whole article only mentions E-Mart.

Home Plus in-store Tesco brand stuff is superior to Korean name brand stuff, and cheaper. Their cereal is awesome, spaghetti sauce is ridiculous cheap, and low fat milk is waaay cheaper.

Lotte Mart razors are crazy cheap and work very well.

Gimpokid · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Location: Best Gimpo

Safeway hardcore does this in the US. They say their store brand is cheaper because of all the "free" advertising they use. My ass.

Guri Guy · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Location: Bamboo Island

Hindsight · Joined: 02 Feb 2009

Trying to overgeneralize that all store brands are junk or all store brands are a great deal is pointless.

Back home you knew which brands (whether store brands or national brands) were good quality or a good deal, and which to avoid. And you could read the label. Here you have to start over. And if you are like me, you don't really want to take the time to experiment too much with Korean brands. Of course, you might try asking a Korean...

As to razors, the HomePlus/Tesco bag of 10 razors for about 1,700 won is the best deal in town. These are great razors by any standard, at least in terms of being sharp and staying sharp. My theory is they are made in an old Wilkinson factory (Brits will, I assume, know what I am talking about.)

And the Tesco house brand Xylitol toothpaste is first rate, and dirt cheap.

And I was delighted to see they have the Tesco Oat Crisp and strawberry cereal back in. It's great for making your own trail mix with some raisins, etc.

Tesco's Earl Gray tea is not very good. Too weak. But then Koreans make tiny cups, anyhow.

Nothing wrong with the Tesco big containers of generic salad dressing - thousand island, etc. And I haven't died yet from using the generic mayonnaise. Can't taste any difference in the catsup.

Plenty of good house brand chocolate at Tesco and elsewhere. Imports, of course. What you are dealing with in a situation like this is a good foreign company that is unwilling to set up marketing and distribution in Korea. One seems to be Brazilian. So they just sell it to the stores.

In case you didn't know it, in the States there are two cheap lines: the "generic" stuff, which was almost always inferior quality, sometimes Chinese, but a bit cheaper, and in black and white packaging labeled generic or some such, and the house brand, which was generall of good quality. It had to be because the store's "brand" and reputation was at stake.

Target has two levels of house brands: Cherokee and Merona, the former being cheaper and more casual, the later being moderately priced but first rate.

So you simply have to break the code.

As to canned corn, pretty much all of it seems to be the equivalent of U.S. house brand quality, packed by a secondary U.S. packer in Upstate New York. Take a look at the labels - it says who packs the stuff, often in English, and where. So the name brand and the house brand corn mostly comes from the same place. And the price is about the same, about 1,000 won a can.

BUT as soon as you put an American label on a canned vegetable, the price doubles or triples or quadruples. If they can ship a can of corn at one price, they could ship a can of peas (or a lowly can of pork and beans) at the same damm price, if they wanted to. 4,000 won for a can of pork and beans! Are they mad? Pork and beans are what hobos and winos and unemployed bums eat. It's not caviar.

I guess my point is pricing in Korea bears little resemblance to quality or wholesale cost.

And in Korea, the house brand quality is going to be especially dependent on the foreign expertise of the store's buyer, unless the stuff is made in Korea.

Now, if a Korea were to go to the U.S., he would encounter a bewildering array of brands, some good, some bad, some famous, some not, and there would be little or no relation between cost and quality. And the price would vary all over the place, depending on where you bought the item. This is very bewildering for immigrants. That may be why Wal-Mart can get away with selling overpriced junk, often defective, to their non-English speaking customers.