As one of the world’s largest market research companies, GfK offers valuable insight into the way people live, think and shop. Client insight manager Marco Salerno takes a look at how the baby care market is faring as we near the end of 2020.
“The baby care market value has fallen sharply over the year with the overall value decline accelerating from 22% over the last 12 months into 26% in the last three months. As we expect, the transportation categories (strollers and car seats) went through the sharpest value decline during the strictest months of lockdown in spring, with stroller sales falling 35% this year, while car seats declined by 22%. This decline in baby transportation (which accounts for 61% of the baby market’s value) has been key in driving the overall category value losses.
These mobility categories began to see their value losses ease once people were allowed to spend more time outside during the summer months. Car seats continue to show some signs of recovery, while strollers remain stagnant with an October value drop of 56% when compared to the same month last year.
Monitors have seen the opposite trend with sales growing by 4% over the last 12 months, while the category declined by 10% in 2019. Monitors sales saw their best growth during the spring and early summer months mainly driven by a shift into ‘smart’, more premium models, with a wireless connection. Smart monitors were heavily promoted and have more than doubled their sales compared to the previous year.
The breastfeeding sub-category has declined the least within the feeding sector. It has been back into growth since August, peaking at 17% growth in October thanks to breast pump value sales increasing by 29% compared to 2019 after struggling during lockdown.
Across the total baby care market, online sales are up by 19% in the last three months, a big increase from 5% in the last 12 months. From a volume perspective the picture is more dramatic, as volume is up by 48% in the last three months.
This reflects a strong shift from higher volume and previously in-store focused categories, such as soothers and teethers, into the online channel. Lockdown has very much accelerated the underlying trend of sales shifting from in-store towards online. As the pandemic is set to remain for months to come, local and national lockdowns are likely to continue. Meanwhile, consumers are trying to get on with their ‘normal lives’…”
See the original article in full here, in the most recent issue of Progressive Preschool magazine.
