Generic Brands Are Cheaper, Yet, Many Will Pay for The Name Brands

We all know that generic brand products deliver big savings.

Yet, a study by economists from the University of Chicago and Tilburg University in the Netherlands points out that many Americans are still willing to pay for name brands and wasting $44 billion annually in the process. 

The study says that millions are influenced by misleading ads, even when they can buy generic products for far less.

 According to the researchers, consumers who are more educated, are more likely to pick the generic version of a product rather than the name brand.

As an example, only nine percent of pharmacists buy Bayer, Advil and Tylenol with the rest opting for generic brands. Meanwhile, the average consumer will select the name brands 26 percent of the time.

Just one in five professional chefs will pay full price for name brand salt, sugar and baking powder, as compared to 40 of average households.

The researchers used Nielsen tracking data based on 77 million shopping trips by about 125,000 households.