Giant food container company Tupperware is facing bankruptcy as the company’s performance continues to slump. Experts claimed that the company’s degrading performance can be attributed to failure to adapt, debts, and collapsing shares price.
A Tupperware spokesperson stated that “the pandemic, inflation, and high interest rates” had severely affected the company. The spokesperson added that the company has been working with financial advisors and attempted to establish partnership to make improvements.
“For more than 75 years, Tupperware has been one of the world’s most beloved, iconic household brands, and we are excited to remain at the heart of dining rooms, tables, kitchen counters and pantry shelves for many years to come,” the spokesperson statement reads.
Tupperware’s overly iconic brand turned out to be a curse as it become a shorthand for any kind of food storage. It became part of the problem as many competitor brands emerged at lower price points, but somehow still referred to as ‘Tupperware’.
Professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business Barbara Kahn, said that the brand became to generic. “At worst, it’s one of these things where their brand name is almost generic, and not in a good way,” Kahn said.
Kahn added that Tupperware’s direct sales model involving ‘Tupperware parties’, where potential customers gather to watch a demo of a product and where sales were made. These direct selling method worked at first, according to Kahn, but consumer habits change even years before the pandemic hits.
Another expert Christie Nordhielm, marketing consultant and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business claimed that Tupperware failed to innovate in response to competition and changes in consumer behavior. This failure resulted in declining sales for years.
