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R.Y. Narayanan

Coimbatore , Sept. 19

FMCG major Procter & Gamble, by selling its two detergent brands — Ariel and Tide — in sachets, hopes to wean away consumers using low-priced detergents from other brands to the premium P&G brands.

But the company does not expect its sachet market to cannibalise the market for Ariel and Tide detergents sold in larger packs, since the different packaging catered to two different market segments. It believes a marginal savings in cost would not lead to a shift in user preference from larger packs to sachets.

At a news conference here on Friday, a P&G spokesperson from Mumbai said the company had found that while consumers used Ariel and Tide sachets for high value clothes, they preferred to use lower-priced detergent brands for washing other clothes. It was found that pricing was a key factor in consumers using different detergents for different clothes.

P&G has now chosen to bridge this price divide by lowering the sachet price of the two detergent brands. While the price of a 20-gm Ariel sachet has been cut from Rs 3 to Rs 2, the price of a Tide sachet of 20 gm (earlier it was sold in 25 gm sachet) has been brought down to Re 1 from Rs 2.

The spokesperson expected that with a substantial price cut, the consumers who were using detergents from two different price segments would now opt for Ariel and Tide since the price barrier has been broken.

On the reasons for effecting price cut on sachets even while leaving the larger packs untouched, the P&G official said price cuts had already been made in the case of larger packs of both detergents — Tide in 2001 and Ariel in 2003. As such, they had been left untouched.

The company did not expect the consumers using larger packs of its detergent brands to shift in any significant way to sachets since large-pack users belonged to the top-end of the market segment and convenience, not pricing, would be the deciding factor for them.

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P&G cuts Ariel, Tide sachet prices to gain market share

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