Let me start this story with a bad analogy. If you went to a car dealership and they offered you a choice between a Toyota and a less expensive Toyota, which would you choose? The seller would invariably tell you that there is no difference because they are made in the same factory. Also, because the manufacturer did not put the Toyota tag on the car, it is 20% cheaper. How is it possible? All things being equal, it stands to reason that there must be a qualitative reason for the price difference. If not, then the reason for the difference in cost is that the branded material is too marked. So much, in fact, that the manufacturer can do the same, offer it as a private label and still make a decent profit. Or maybe the similar Toyota was made by a car company you’ve never heard of.
To continue my argument on the first point, there is a quality difference between the two. I wonder what the difference in quality is between a blind without a label and a brand known as Hunter Douglas or Levolor. Do you use cheaper mechanisms and materials? That seems unlikely because it would cost them money to run two separate production lines to produce roughly the same shade or blind. I was shopping for new vertical blinds online and noticed quite a significant price difference between what appeared to be identical blinds – brand and no-name. So I called their toll free number to ask who did their signature line, they told me it was a company called Springs. I’ve never heard of Springs unlike the Hunter Douglas brand I’ve heard of. Few people could name more than two brands of blinds and curtains, at least I couldn’t until I started buying them. But, chances are, Hunter Douglas and Levolor are brands that people know. They are large companies and they make all kinds of curtains and fashions.
The plot thickens. It turns out that most of the well-known blind manufacturers that I know of don’t sell a private label variety. They are more interested in preserving the integrity of their brand. Therefore, it seems that the validity of my initial hypothesis has suffered some erosion. But all I did was close the loop and go back to my original question. Is there a quality difference between a well-known brand and a private label? Otherwise, the cost savings are probably not worth it. That is unless they come with the same warranty. For the most part they do.
I started reading customer reviews to find out if there was a noticeable difference between brand and private label blinds ratings. Interestingly, and somewhat ironically, I noticed that the average rating was slightly lower for Hunter Douglas blinds compared to signature (private label) blinds. Perhaps this was a case of higher expectations. People know Hunter Douglas, he spent a lot of money, and consequently he had high expectations. Something like if you bought a Mercedes and the doors vibrated or used cheap plastic for the climate control buttons.
In the end, I figured that between the high customer ratings, cost savings, and similar warranties, private label blinds would just find for me. I went ahead and bought some vertical blinds and have been happy so far. They may be a difficult customer, but you know what they say, Emptor Warning: Buyer beware.
