Store Brands Shed Their Knockoff Reputation as Gen Z Stocks Up

The “generic” aisle is starting to look a lot more premium. Younger shoppers are warming up to store brands as retailers roll out sleeker packaging and more upscale products. Spending on premium private-label items among Gen Z and Millennials climbed 5 percentage points between 2019 and 2025, and Numerator expects Gen Z to become the most loyal store-brand shoppers in 2026.

• US shoppers spent a record $282.8B on private-label goods in 2025, with store brands growing nearly three times faster than national brands.
• Retailers like TargetTGT
  , Kohl’sKSS
  , and CostcoCOST
  are expanding private-label lines as store brands become a larger piece of retail sales.

Generic goes mainstream: Retailers are also leaning harder into private labels for better margins and tighter control over pricing as the stigma around store brands keeps fading. Trust in private-label apparel now sits at 55%, pushing retailers like WalmartWMT

to refresh private-label packaging after shoppers said they liked the products but not how they looked at home. As NielsenIQ’s Steve Zurek puts it, store brands are now “almost a badge of honor” for some generations.