FMCG + rigid necessities, diapers have always been the focus of the maternal and infant industry. However, as the dividends of the maternal and infant market fade and the popularity fades, there are frequent voices in stores that business is not good and there is no profit.
In the Internet era, the market characteristics of diapers make it not completely monopolized by online channels, and half of the market is still in offline physical stores, which is actually an opportunity for maternal and child stores.
In fact, on the shelves of most mother and baby stores, the diaper category still firmly occupies an important position, and the proportion of diapers in some stores even exceeds 30%. Low profits are a fact, but because they can bring customer traffic and there are no too high technical barriers, diapers have become a low-cost option for stores to maintain stable traffic.
Today's "volume price", tomorrow's "volume quality"
In 1961, Time magazine selected the 100 greatest inventions of the 20th century, and now the household name diaper is on the list. But it was 30 years later that the concept of diapers really began to be popularized in China. In 1994, Kimberly-Clark, a global health care company, entered China, and the people began to really use diaper products.
In the following 10 years, the diaper industry has been monopolized by imported brands, until 2005, domestic diaper brands officially entered the game, with high-quality production and research and development capabilities, the gap between Chinese and foreign brands is narrowing.
Source: iResearch
But at present, it is still foreign brands that occupy the majority of the diaper market share and are concentrated in the high-end market. Most of the domestic brands are in the low-end market, and the market share is very low, and even the market share of the domestic head brand Xinshihao does not exceed 5%.
However, the huge market size still gives domestic brands a lot of market opportunities. According to statistics, the size of the diaper market will reach 200 billion yuan in 2023, which means that behind the 5% market share is actually a consumption scale of 10 billion yuan, and Xinshihao is supporting an IPO with this.
It is expected that in the future, the diaper market will continue to expand at a rate of 30%-40% per year. Therefore, whether it is high, medium or low-end products, they all contain a large number of market opportunities.
As the saying goes, "high-end business, low-end business, the more high-end, the easier it is to do, and the more low-end, the more competitive." "The same applies to the diaper market." can buy expensive" - high-end diapers consumer groups are willing to pay more for the special features, ingredients and brand premium of the product; "Can't buy expensive" - low-end diapers consumer groups, pay special attention to the ultimate cost performance of products.
Although it is said that both high-end and low-end brands have their own set of rules for survival. However, today, when the overall maternal and infant categories are developing in the direction of high-end, domestic diaper brands also need to adapt to market changes and improve brand tonality and product quality. Industry insiders also expressed a similar view: "The future competition of diapers is still based on the quality of the product and the value of the brand. ”
Therefore, making high-end products is the only way for the future development of domestic diaper brands. However, due to the fact that in the past, domestic diaper brands have been caught in the whirlpool of vicious competition caused by price "involution", so that domestic products are often strongly bound to the "ultimate cost performance", accompanied by the uneven quality of product quality, leaving a bad brand impression on consumers.
Going to the high-end means price increases, and the price increases of most domestic brands are not paid for by consumers at all. "Whoever rises the price first will suffer first" has even become the consensus of many people in the industry.
But today, with the continuous increase in the price of upstream raw materials of diapers and the continuous reduction of terminal consumption, the profits of the low-end diaper market are being compressed to the extreme. This means that in order to make money for a long time, the domestic diaper brand ecology needs to change urgently to support more price space.
Among them, technology is an important breakthrough point. Recently, Daddy Baby obtained a project called "a diaper that can be opened and closed at the side waist". Technological upgrading can break the price "involution" and gain the favor of consumers. It can be seen that technological innovation is an important breakthrough to break the "involution" of prices.
Online is the hardest hit area for fakes, and half of the market is offline
In fact, in addition to the long-term entrenchment of domestic diaper brands in the low-end market living environment, the high-end market monopolized by foreign brands is also very fiercely competitive. Especially today, when the rate of new births in China is declining year by year, the diaper market is also constantly reshuffling, and some foreign-funded enterprises are withdrawing from the Chinese market one after another.
In January this year, Japan's Kao Group, which had created a sales myth in China with its Miaoershu diapers, also sold its diaper factory in Hefei; Last month, Japan's large diaper manufacturer Sanya suddenly announced its withdrawal from diaper-related business in China······
So, are diapers still a good business today? We can see the answer at the channel.
The author visited a number of maternal and child stores and found that although there are many voices in the industry singing about the decline of the diaper business. But in each store, diaper products are still placed in a separate row of shelves. Compared with other products, the position of diapers is actually very stable. According to statistics, diapers account for more than 30% in many stores, and today, diapers are still the key business category of many mother and baby stores.
In fact, the sales logic of diapers is more favorable to the Internet, and today, when the development of the e-commerce economy is in full swing, half of the sales market of diapers still occurs offline.
This is actually determined by the characteristics of the diaper market, and the polarization of the high and low end of the product is too obvious, making diapers the hardest hit area of counterfeit products.
Most consumers are more inclined to trust big brands, and big brands often mean high-end and high prices, and the high profits in them make countless small workshops take risks. At the same time, the low-end diaper market often has problems such as chaotic price system and opaque channels, which also gives many unscrupulous businesses an opportunity to take advantage of.
According to statistics, more than 50% of consumers have bought counterfeit and shoddy diapers online, and the quality and safety of diaper products have been well guaranteed in the consumer network of maternal and child stores established on the basis of trust. Therefore, mother and baby stores have become the primary channel for many consumers to buy diapers.
It can be said that the online channel of diapers is seriously fake, which has given more sales opportunities to offline maternal and infant physical stores.
Bringing traffic to stores is not the optimal solution but the cost is low
In the community at the forefront of mothers and babies, the author learned that many shopkeepers are saying that the profit of diapers is very low, and even some stores bluntly said, "Diapers are too rolly, 68.5 yuan for purchase, not counting freight, only 70 yuan, and the profit in the end is only a few cents." "Profits are compressed to the extreme, do stores still have to do diaper business?
The answer is, of course. There are even some mother and baby shop owners who told the author not only to do it, but also to focus on it.
Although the profit of diapers is very low, the "small profits and quick turnover" still bring up the overall sales. During my visit, I saw that a store was doing a promotional diaper activity, buying diapers of a certain scale at one time and giving valuable gifts. The owner of the store said bluntly, "There must still be money to be made." ”
In fact, compared with the profit of diapers, for most stores, what is more valuable is the traffic brought by diaper products, especially new traffic. As the growth of the maternal and infant industry continues to slow down, the transformation of traditional maternal and infant stores into health conditioning stores is very hot, and how to expand new stores is a difficult problem for such stores. In addition to word-of-mouth solicitation, the basic maternal and infant products sector will also bring new customers.
A shopkeeper said, "I have thrown away the basic plates such as milk powder and diapers, but now I have picked them up, because I realize that it is unlikely that a new customer will say 'boss, you help me recuperate' when he arrives at the store for the first time, and the demographic dividend period has passed, and new customers will only become customers of conditioning products if they become old customers." ”
It is undeniable that compared with diapers, pediatric massage, medicated baths, swimming pools and other project stores that must be experienced in the store, the customer flow is very large, and it has become a new traffic password for some mother and child stores to gain customers. Some mother and baby stores have said, "service-oriented products not only have great profit margins, but also help attract new customers, especially swimming products, in the process of serving the baby, the baby's physical condition actually has a deep understanding, and then it can be transformed into other nutrition services." ”
However, judging from the current situation of the industry, there are also problems such as too high threshold and high technical barriers for service-oriented products, and there are only a few stores that can really do a good job. From another point of view, the sales-oriented category may also be able to support the mother and baby store?