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Susan Schwartz

Hong Kong is spurning environmentally-friendly refill packs and no-frills groceries in favour of over-packaged products, according to experts.

The reason - consumers think they will lose face if they fill their shopping trolley with these cheaper but less ostentatious items, according to Eric Cheung Kai-wa, executive director of BrandsNation which designs much of the packaging for top brands in the territory.

'It's all about money, Hong Kong people don't want to lose face.

'If you've got a guest visiting your home, you don't want them to know you use a no-frills brand,' Mr Cheung said.

'When Wellcome first introduced its no-frills line they put them on the bottom shelf because of this type of thinking.

'Consumers think they can afford a plastic bottle so why go for the refill pack? Instead they just keep buying bottles and throwing them out.'

ParknShop spokeswoman Teresa Pang Sau-kwan said the chain was selling considerably fewer refills than original packs. 'Perhaps the customers throw away the old pack, therefore they do not have the pump or dispenser when they come to purchase again,' Ms Pang said.

'We do offer a discount on the refill compared to the original pack, but we cannot force customers to buy it.'

Sales of supermarkets' own-brand products in Hong Kong lag behind sales of such items in Britain, the United States and Australia.

'The promotion and development of own-brand products has started relatively later in Hong Kong than these countries and with some retailer effort consumers are starting to buy more,' Ms Pang said. 'Classically, own-brand products should do better in times of recession because customers are trying to save money.

'We benchmark the brand quality but offer a cheaper price. The customer needs to try it before they believe it though, hence we have introduced promotions using demonstrations and tastings, but this is a slow process.'



Customers shun no-frills goods in supermarkets to save face