Kirkland Signature

If you shop smartly, and go for Costco's Kirkland Signature house brand, you can save money.

Costco wants to let consumers know how much they could save by buying its private, in-house Kirkland Signature brand. Some stores recently had a display -- two shopping carts filled with items side by side -- one with national brands amounting to $437.85 and the other one with the Kirkland brand amounting to $229.35. The resulting difference is $208.50, or 47.6 percent in savings.

But what's behind the Kirkland Signature brand?

The Kirkland brand was established 15 years ago, according to Costco, and named after the city in Washington state where the company once had its home base (today's headquarters are in Issaquah).

Kirkland currently makes up about 10 percent of the products you see in a Costco warehouse, and is still growing. You can find Kirkland products in nearly every department -- from olive oil to coffee, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, vanilla ice cream, dog food, vitamins, laundry detergent, cookware, toilet paper, towels, beer and bedsheets.

Costco's goals in developing the brand, said CEO Jim Sinegal, were to develop popular items where the company could control the packaging, and drive down national brand prices. In instances where the right product wasn't available at the right price, Costco decided to create its own.

National brands usually are launched with expensive ad campaigns with the goal of becoming a household name that consumers automatically seek.

House brands, which used to be perceived as a lower-quality version of the national brand, are making a comeback in this economy and gaining a better reputation. Costco insists that its Kirkland products are either better than or equal to the national brands.