The end of Brandless

I don’t buy the argument that being brandless was a mistake. Brandless is the brand and it was very clever of them. If there is something they got right, it was the branding. What undid them is the cost of goods sold. It’s beyond me as to why they didn’t go premium with pricing and focused on lesser categories. But they had a thesis to follow and r... See more

Brandless was primarily felled by a thesis that never panned out — that there were young consumers who craved a digital middle ground between dollar stores and malls. People who were price-sensitive, cared somewhat about quality, but not about brands. Walmart for hipsters. Trader Joe's for millennials.

. Still, it was losing money from high shipping costs and was plagued with quality problems, according to a report from The Information. It had tried increasing prices to $9 on some products, but it wasn’t enough. SoftBank had set up its investment in Brandless so that it would only deliver all of the cash when certain markers were hit. It never in... See more