| BTW, in a piece of news you'll be bound to love ( ), W-Mart-branded
| paints were S-W at the time of the last house-painting here (4-5 yr
| ago). This is a small market locale so one S-W store and the other
| chain outlets for local suppliers so was a cheaper alternative for what
| appeared in use to be same product.
|

That's an interesting issue. I remember Consmuer Reports,
years ago, recommending something like J.C. Penney as the
top paint. I don't know how one can tell whether the Walmart
paint is the same as branded SW or not. I avoid those store
brands for that reason. That's always been an issue with
Sears. If you buy their sewing machine was it made by Singer
or by Ace and Acme? The answer might even differ from one
batch to the next. They're not making any promises about that.

Another good example is Trader Joes.
Their products could come from good companies, but
it's likely they don't. Companies want to maintain their own
reputation. Even if a good company is supplying TJ brand,
it's likely they'd send TJ the bottom-of-the-barrel stock,
since their name is not on it.

There was an example of that last year, due to a
salmonella outbreak in peanut butter. The recall included
TJ's peanut butter, as well as products from discount
product companies like Little Debbie. It turned out it
was all coming from a wholesaler in the Midwest, named
"Big Nut" I'm guessing that the hipsters who shop at
TJs don't usually think about that kind of thing, but it's
really common sense: TJs focuses on low price and their
suppliers remain anonymous. That's a formula for poor
product quality. It's silly to expect a store brand sold
at a low price to be high quality.