the ultimate form of flattery?

Another moment wishing I'd had my camera with me. (Does Nathan ever learn, no, Nathan does not.) So I wandered into the Dollar Store, searching around for some grand deal over the weekend (how much is this toilet brush? ONE dollar! Sold! How about this flashlight? Only a dollar, too! Wow! What about this Hello Kitty wall clock? Oh, oh, everything is a dollar? And you get really sick of people asking you how much things are, when it's called the Dollar Store, eh? Oh, ok. So sorry. Uhm, so, how much is this candy bar? Fifty cents? HA!, caught ya! No, no, wait, I want to purchase my Hello Kitty wall clock, I promise to be good, please don't ban me from the Dollar Store... Please!) And I stumbled upon something interesting.

The Dollar Store is "competing" with method! Can you believe that one? They actually have a brand of cleaning supplies (actually they're only spray cleaners) called Solutions. They come in bottles that look exactly like the original method spray cleaner line (before they had their square bottoms) and in bright, happy friendly colors, and with aromatherapy style scents. Do they smell like essential oils? Uh, NO. In fact, the only call out on the packaging as to being "earth friendlish" was a statement to the nature of "these cleaners are biodegradable." But what are you expecting, when you're going to pay one dollar? What surprised me was simply the fact that method has had such an impact on the cleaning market (a fact we've known for quite some time, of course) that the Dollar Store felt the need to get in on some copycat action. There's no comparison, of course, but it's interesting no matter.

So it ends there, right? I mean, we all know the "Big Brands" are starting to parade out their earth friendly products (i.e. Clorox Greenworks); but the point I'm trying to get across here (and I'm not always too good about getting my point across, trust me on that one! Oh, wait, you read this blog regularly, you already know that, don't you.) but it's that smaller "no name" labels are getting on the bandwagon, trying to take up a small percentage of method's niche. In I go to Linens N' Things this weekend as well, and what do I see, among a couple leftover method items (they used to carry method products, but seem to have stopped doing that a while ago) but a "new" line called Level. And what does it look like? (Come on, you can say it with me...)

More cleaning spray, the colors, bottle design, on and on. Totally method. I should have been smart enough to check the price? Because I'm curious if they felt bringing in their own line (not sure if Linens N' Things produces Level, but wouldn't be surprised) would result in them being able to make more money/and at a lower price point (method products at LNT were usually always about one dollar more than at Target stores. Not sure if that was a method thing, or a LNT thing, but I'm thinking it was a LNT thing.) Just another acknowledgement that method is definitely making an impact in the cleaning products market, and it's not just the Big Guys that are taking notice.