Maternal and infant consumption has shifted to these categories on a large scale

Guide: there is no doubt that for a long time in the past, milk powder and diapers accounted for the majority of mother and baby consumption. They are the core products of mother and baby channels, and their importance is self-evident. On the one hand, the sales volume of milk powder diapers accounts for a large proportion, of which the sales revenue of milk powder accounts for almost half of the overall sales of mother and baby stores. On the other hand, milk powder diapers, which are just in need of high-frequency FMCG products, can have a strong relationship with customers for a long time, and are called the pillar products of stores. But in the past two years, the era of milk powder diapers is gone forever

Source: new mother and baby shop

Whether it's the channel feedback we heard in our visits to offline channels or the online multi-party consumption data show that in recent years, with the continuous promotion of the wave of consumption upgrading and the rise of the new generation of mother and child users, the diversification of consumption has brought opportunities for the emergence of various sub categories. The proportion of head categories such as milk powder and diapers in the overall sales of mother and child channels has decreased year by year, The proportion of subdivided long tail sketches is gradually increasing. Therefore, for mother and baby retailers, in addition to paying attention to milk powder diapers, they also need to create new growth points and appropriately tilt their focus to other advantageous categories.

So, what kind of mother and baby products do the new generation of parents prefer? What kind of sub category is worth fighting for?

Zero complementary food and nutrition for infants and young children

As we all know, children's nutrition and health is the theme of Baoma's constant attention, especially for the imported baby food. In addition to milk powder, the proportion of zero complementary food and infant nutrition products with a longer consumption cycle increased significantly.

The first is supplementary food. As the baton of milk powder, the consumption scale of supplementary food has continued to rise in recent years and has become a core position for the industry's incremental market and enterprises. On the one hand, the younger users, refined consumption, scientific childcare and brand localization provide various opportunities for the development of nutritional and complementary food market; On the other hand, many mothers and babies began to compete in the food industry. Focus online. According to ecdataway data, in 2020, the online sales of baby supplementary food increased by 50.1% year-on-year, and in 2021, the online sales of Q1 baby snacks increased by 132.1% year-on-year. The development trend of zero supplementary food is very good.

When we visited offline channels, many store owners said: "now many mothers will directly ask questions related to supplementary snacks when they enter the store. For example, how many months can the baby start eating supplementary foods? Can my baby eat rice noodles after 6 months? We can clearly feel that their needs are there." In addition, a small mother and baby chain owner said, "consumers' consumption habits of zero complementary foods are jointly cultivated by channels and brands. It is normal for a consumer to buy three or four hundred snacks at a time, especially healthy snacks, which are eaten by children and parents."

In addition to zero complementary food, the voice of nutrition has become higher and higher in recent years. With the strengthening of consumers' health concept, their cognition and acceptance of nutrition are gradually improving. At the same time, the state is also promoting "national health". The development prospect of nutrition is good. Coupled with the continuous impact of the epidemic, "strengthening immunity" has become the rigid demand of the whole people, and the scale of nutrition market is growing. Nowadays, nutrition is in the limelight, the proportion of categories is gradually rising, and its "rigid demand" momentum is prominent. According to ecdataway data, the online sales of Q1 infant nutrition products increased by 80.5% year-on-year in 2021, and the proportion of sub categories also increased to 18.6% from 12.5% in 2020. There is no doubt that the maternal and infant nutrition market has a strong growth potential.

Early education toys

In Chinese traditional concept, children's education is a major event, and the expenditure on early childhood education has become an important expenditure of family consumption. Especially as the new generation of young parents become the most mainstream consumer groups of mothers and infants, they have both the ability to pay and the willingness to pay. If the choice of early education services is troublesome and difficult, the cost of early education toys will be much lower by comparison. According to the Research Report on the operation situation and investment strategy of China's intelligent toy market from 2017 to 2022, the intelligent toy products in children's intelligent products will maintain an average annual growth rate of 75% in the next five years, far exceeding the average annual growth rate of 6% in the toy industry.

In addition, data show that in 2020, the growth rate of tmall's consumption of toys related to early childhood education intelligence was three times that of the overall toy market, among which ar globe, electric pencil sharpener, learning machine and point reading pen have become the "artifact" of young parents. In addition, according to the data of JD 618 in 2021, the turnover of toy categories increased by 180% year-on-year on the whole day of children's day. Among them, building blocks, educational toys and blind box toys ranked top 3, the turnover of building block splicing increased by 160% year-on-year, and the turnover of educational toys increased by 370% year-on-year. From various data, we can clearly see that the new generation of treasure mothers pay more attention to early education toys, especially early education toys that are more helpful to children's intellectual development and enlightenment education, such as building blocks and steam toys, are more popular with mothers.

It can be seen that with the upgrading of consumption and the change of Family Parenting concept, the new generation of parents pay more attention to the early cultivation of their children, and pay more attention to their children's imagination, creativity and practical ability. The trend of traditional toys towards intelligence is faster and faster. Based on its continuous expansion in function and content, early education intelligent toys can meet the needs of parents in different education, It can be predicted that with the continuous development of potential demand and the emergence of new profit growth points, the advantages of early education toys will become more and more prominent.

Fall protection articles

In most people's subconscious mind, only large maternal and infant products can make big business. However, at present, the more subdivided the market, the easier it is to generate new opportunities, such as fall prevention products that were not valued before. At present, the new generation of parents are in charge. With the strengthening of their exquisite parenting concept, they pay more attention to the safety and high-quality growth of their children, pursue practicality and effectiveness, and help their children avoid any possible risks as much as possible. In this context, fall protection products have become popular, and the number of buyers of products such as bed guardrails and Walker belts has also increased rapidly in the past two years.

At present, anti falling products include a series of products with anti falling and anti-collision cushioning capabilities, such as bed guardrails, anti grasping gloves / knee pads, walking belts, anti-collision strips and car safety seats, which did not seem to be present in the previous extensive traditional parenting process. However, in recent years, this sub category has seen considerable growth. According to ecdataway data, in 2021, the online consumption of Q1 anti-collision / reminder / safety / protection baby and child products increased by 48.4% year-on-year, and the online consumption of car seat / seat belt increased by 46.6% year-on-year. It can be seen that anti falling products are gradually changing from subdivided sketches to high-frequency products.

In fact, many of the categories mentioned above are on our shelves, but they have not been valued for a long time. In the future, facing the new opportunities and challenges of the mother and baby market, stores will start from these categories, strengthen display, do a good job in category management, increase special training, optimize shopping guidance incentives and design targeted promotions, which is likely to get out of trouble in the strange circle of declining gross profit and enter a new blue sea.