Oh they care about the packaging, they care very much. They're doing price discrimination in stages:
The fancy toothpaste with the beautiful box comes from the same conglomerate as the cheaper one does. If you consider yourself hot stuff, you pick the fancy brand with the shiniest box. The middle class, humble folk pick the same product sans color whirl and foil insets on the box, but it's still Colgate brand shaving cream. None of that Value-By-Walmart crap for our house, no sir.
The in-store, value-add generic products look even cheaper and less attractive. My rational mind knows that Safeway doesn't own any shampoo factories, and Safeway Compliments brand shampoo comes from the same vats as the more expensive stuff on the higher shelves.
It's not like fancier graphics take more money to print. Rather, P&G, Tesco et al pay the designer to make the boxes look "cheap" or "expensive", so us suckers would opt for the more expensive option - and bring more revenue.
We are all suckers. I learned this like 10 years ago prepping for my economics admittance exam. Our house is still filled with brand-name items, because monkey be dumb.
As a control system engineer, I can confirm you're correct that store brand items are often made in the same factory, using the same equipment as brand items.
However in every factory I've worked in, there have always been differences in quality.
Active or expensive ingredients are reduced or replaced. Soaps concentration is lowered, butter and cocoa is reduced/replaced, less pulses(beans) or fruit in the tin, drained weights are lowered, quality control is not as strict, etc.
Regarding quality control - often factories would clean the line prior to running the high end product. Switching over to the cheaper product usually consists of switching the packaging out and topping up the supply with the cheaper product - no clean or flushing of the line. The first couple of items produced would be different quality to the rest of the batch.
You have to cut some corners to compete with big companies like p&g and Unilever. They're buying and producing much larger quantities of products than any generic brand.
Regarding cheap packaging - you pay per colour when printing. Printing materials can also be swapped out. Thinner plastic or card. Matt instead of high gloss.
The fancy toothpaste with the beautiful box comes from the same conglomerate as the cheaper one does. If you consider yourself hot stuff, you pick the fancy brand with the shiniest box. The middle class, humble folk pick the same product sans color whirl and foil insets on the box, but it's still Colgate brand shaving cream. None of that Value-By-Walmart crap for our house, no sir.
The in-store, value-add generic products look even cheaper and less attractive. My rational mind knows that Safeway doesn't own any shampoo factories, and Safeway Compliments brand shampoo comes from the same vats as the more expensive stuff on the higher shelves.
It's not like fancier graphics take more money to print. Rather, P&G, Tesco et al pay the designer to make the boxes look "cheap" or "expensive", so us suckers would opt for the more expensive option - and bring more revenue.
We are all suckers. I learned this like 10 years ago prepping for my economics admittance exam. Our house is still filled with brand-name items, because monkey be dumb.