Store Brand vs. Name Brand

Every morning, thousands of people across the country pass through the doors of their local Starbucks and pick up their daily caffeine fix. Starbucks is a nationally recognized coffee chain offering a wide variety of gourmet coffee drinks. However, some may argue that their coffee is no better than the diner down the street of that little mom and pop place just around the corner. So how come people are willing to shell out two or three times more money for the same, or better, quality coffee?
Consumers today are finding themselves paying way more money than what's necessary, simply for a specific brand name. How many times have you found yourself standing in an aisle at Target, trying to decide between two almost identical products? However, one product is Target brand, while the other is not. Most of the time in my case, I would choose the store brand because I'm a poor college student and the store brand can be up to a dollar or two cheaper. But there are those brands that I, as well as many other consumers, gravitate towards, despite the higher price. This is because we have been trained to believe that store brand products are lower in quality than the name brands. One of the reasons why we may have these false beliefs is because of the lack of advertising that supports the store brand products. But in reality, most store brand products are comparable to their name brand counterparts.
So take a chance and buy those store brand products for once. Not only will you be saving some money but they just might surprise you. And if the fact that the label doesn't say a name brand, just close your eyes and I'll bet that you won't even be able to tell a difference!
-Heather