When brand-name companies cannot provide goods at the price point desired by WM, WM can try to go off-brand, but it prefers to sell the same product labels as everyone else. However, now it will be starting it's own brand, iLo:
Wal-Mart isn't the only big name to launch its own electronics brand or pay more attention the lucrative space in recent months. Best Buy launched Insignia, a house brand for televisions, PCs and devices such as portable DVD players this fall. PC makers Dell, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard have also all mounted efforts to tap the consumer electronics market this holiday season with their own flat-screen televisions and music players.Although Wal-Mart isn't attempting to replace the brand-name products it already carries, it is positioning iLo as a lower-priced alternative. It's also willing to offer some types of electronics, such as DVD recorders, that companies such as Dell haven't been interested in.
Wal-Mart enjoys a fairly unique position as an electronics supplier. It caters to a broad audience of consumers with more than 3,000 stores in the United States and maintains tight relationships with Asian electronics manufacturers, which it can use to turn out its iLo gear.
But Wal-Mart, which carries well-known consumer electronics brands including Panasonic, Sanyo and Sony, aims to use iLo to plug gaps in product availability or pricing in its selection, said Karen Burke, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.
Here are the current iLo products. Is iLo the new Realistic?
(h/t: technocrat)
Posted by Kevin on December, 20 2004 at 09:54 AM
