Private label products are offered to consumers as cheaper alternatives to name-brand products. While the stores have similar manufacturing, packaging and ingredient costs as name brands, they spend less marketing dollars. That allows them to undercut the name brands on price. This makes sales of private label products much more profitable for the retailer and captures the sales of consumers for whom the name brand is too expensive. Customers are more likely to buy the private label product than the higher-priced, brand-name product, especially when economic downturns happen.