Author丨Chen Wenshi
The essence of the FMCG economy is the population economy, which is particularly prominent in the maternal and infant industry.
One of the facts we have seen is that the maternal and infant industry has been the most stressful, challenging and changing industry in the FMCG sector in the past decade.
In 2016, there were 17.86 million births in China, and in 2023, this number will drop to 9.02 million. In just eight years, births have halved. Obviously, the decline in the birth population, the shrinkage of the industry, and the differentiation of demand have become the most significant characteristics of the maternal and infant industry.
At this time, where does growth come from, is it possible to achieve growth, and how can it be achieved? Every maternal and infant practitioner is looking for the answer to this question.
On April 11, Taobao Tmall maternal and infant parent-child industry held the "2024 Parent-Child Festival Industry Summit" in Hangzhou. As the largest super IP event in the maternal and infant industry, the Parent-Child Festival has been held for six consecutive years. At this year's Parent-Child Festival Industry Summit, the "Parent-Child Award" was also awarded, and an online promotion activity was launched from April 17 to 20.
From the perspective of influence, Taobao Parent-Child Festival is not only a super-large-scale maternal and infant consumption activity, but also an opportunity to observe the changes in the maternal and infant industry, consumption trends, new business development, industrial challenges and opportunities.
Li Sa, general manager of Taobao Tmall maternal and infant parent-child industry, said, "2024 will focus on the long-term business growth of merchants, starting from user value, leading consumer minds, and focusing on brand growth." "Growth" is the number one goal for mothers and babies in 2024. ”
Looking at mothers and babies from Taotian data
New changes in consumption and channels
In 2023, the population will be negative, but the number of merchants will still grow, and "volume" will inevitably become the biggest competitive feature of the maternal and infant industry.
However, even if it is a "volume", how can we roll out quality and growth?
From the perspective of consumption, due to the continuous decline in the number of births, maternal and infant consumption is characterized by a decline in total volume, an increase in prices, and a differentiation in demand.
From the perspective of channels, the maternal and infant sales channels are gradually specialized and chained offline, and there is a trend of gradual shift from offline to online. However, whether it is offline or online channels, they are generally concentrating on advantageous channels and head platforms.
In the overall market environment, Taotian Mother and Baby will also achieve two important growth in 2023:
The number of Amoy maternal and infant users has grown rapidly, exceeding 300 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 20%, and the penetration rate of 88VIP users among 300 million maternal and infant users has increased from 8% to 10%.
The first growth means that more and more users choose to buy maternal and child products on Taobao and Tmall.
The second growth means that more and more high-value users (88VIP) of the Tao system have also chosen to buy maternal and child products on Taobao and Tmall.
These two increases are extraordinary.
It means that Taobao and Tmall have made many important judgments on the consumption trend of mothers and children, and because of this, they have made the most correct responses and changes, so that users and consumers can gather more to it.
These judgments and responses are extremely important for the entire maternal and infant industry, and the answer to how to achieve growth in the era of shrinkage is also in it.
At this year's Parent-Child Festival Summit, Taotian also shared the latest maternal and infant consumption research report.
The report surveyed 1,562 people online and 72 people in multiple cities. The report shows that the behavior of Chinese maternal and infant consumers has undergone fundamental changes and differentiation, and compared with the consumption of ten years ago, four or five years ago, there has been a huge change of the times.
First, the concept of parenting has changed dramatically. Among the new generation of 90 parents, the concept of encouraging, equal and democratic parenting has become the mainstream, and more parents hope to grow up with their children and be friends with their children.
This change will trigger a continuous change in maternal and infant consumption. For example, in this generation of families, children will be younger and more weighted in their consumption decisions. This is very different from the past.
Second, the huge changes in consumer psychology. Among the 60/70 generation of parents, they are often "infinitely satisfied" in their children's consumption, but among the new generation of parents, maternal and infant consumption presents the characteristics of "rationality", and purchase decisions begin to be suitable and practical.
Third, parents' attention to all aspects of their children remains high, which is the tradition of the Chinese nation. But among all the items of concern, children's physical and mental health ranked first and second. In first- and second-tier cities, parents are significantly more concerned about their children's physical and mental health.
This means that in addition to traditional children's education-related products, categories that are beneficial to children's physical and mental health will continue to expand and grow rapidly in the future, such as nutritional products and children's growth milk powder.
Fourth, in the process of parenting, mothers have a huge need to please themselves, and fathers have more willingness to participate in the process of raising children.
This is a significant difference between the 90-generation parents and the past. This change can guide the brand owners of the maternal and infant industry in the direction of effective innovation in product research and development, consumption scene building, and brand communication.
How Taobao and Tmall became
The main position of China's maternal and infant consumption?
Taobao and Tmall have become one of the main fronts of China's maternal and child consumption.
According to the data, in 2023, on the Taobao Tmall platform, there will be 10 brands with a scale of more than 1 billion, 257 brands with a scale of more than 100 million, and 1,882 brands with a scale of more than 10 million. From the commodity level, there are 9 super single products that break 100 million yuan, and 1,073 large single products that break 10 million.
Where does the growth of brand owners come from? The first important thing is to embrace the growth channel and growth platform. Only on the platform of growth can there be the greatest possibility of achieving their own growth.
In the case that the general environment is not optimistic, why can Taobao Tmall become the main position of high-speed growth of maternal and infant consumption? From the speech of Li Sa, general manager of Taobao Tmall maternal and infant parenting industry, at the summit, we tried to summarize the following Taotian maternal and infant growth methodology.
The continuous growth of Taotian Mother and Child is actually to create a growth system with "user insight, product remodeling, and scenario marketing" as the core.
An important action of Taotian Mother and Child is to "optimize supply and improve the efficiency of human and cargo operations". By looking for high-quality brand partners in the industrial chain, we will build a system with maternal and infant groups as the core.
This product system covers the whole cycle from pregnancy to childbearing age from 0-12 years old, involving 9 categories: "maternity, children's clothing & shoes, baby care and supplies, baby milk powder and food, baby diapers, stationery and audio-visual education". Taotian Mother and Baby, in fact, has become a one-stop professional platform for parents to raise children in the whole cycle.
Under the full-cycle, 9-category platform product structure, Taotian Mother and Child also helps brand owners to do a good job in the construction of scientific commodity echelon. Focusing on the five dimensions of "super single product, price power pallet, new product, trend product, and absolute cost-effective pallet", we will build the core competitiveness of merchants' products.
At the same time, for different commodities, Taotian Mother and Child also cooperates with merchants to use different strategies and resources to create a healthy commodity structure from drainage, transaction and repurchase, and profit.
In addition to deep user insight and full-cycle product system building, "scenario-based marketing" is a growth tool provided by Taotian Mother and Child for merchants.
Focusing on user decision-making and purchase paths, the content of multiple platforms on the whole network outside the site is planted to occupy the minds of consumers first, and the traffic is channeled to the site, relying on various content marketing methods such as celebrity live broadcast/store broadcast to transform and monetize. Through high-quality products and attractive activities, we can attract repeat purchases, so that more new customers can become old customers and upgrade to high-value customers.
Starting from user insight, creating a full-cycle supply chain of high-quality maternal and infant products, and achieving sustainable growth through scenario-based marketing, this is a growth path created by Taotian maternal and infant platform for merchants, and it is also another expression of Taotian maternal and infant "focusing on the long-term business growth of merchants, starting from user value, leading consumer minds, and focusing on brand growth".
Under the great changes of mother and child
Challenges and opportunities
The entire maternal and infant industry must establish a correct long-term understanding, the general trend of declining birth population continues, the rate of decline slows down, and there may be a rebound, but it will not reverse.
The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity is to find a path to sustained growth and qualitative growth in the era of shrinkage.
First, recognize the changing trend of maternal and infant consumption, and find the laws and opportunities behind consumption differentiation.
Second, recognize the trend of continuous online growth and online and offline integration, and find opportunities to cultivate their own online operation capabilities.
Third, recognize the trend of sales concentration behind consumption differentiation, and embrace all growth channels, especially the main growth front. Quickly learn and master the rules of the platform, apply the rules, focus on investment, adapt to changes, and take advantage of the rapid growth.
Grasp the direction of the platform and follow the trend, and the long-term development of the brand will be closer to continuous operation.