Why Are Offline Channels Still Meaningful?

After the opening of the "two child policy", Maternal and infant market Usher in a new round of growth. From mother and baby e-commerce to physical stores, to overseas shopping, from selling paper diapers to selling health care products for pregnant women, the mother and baby market suddenly seems to be the latest outlet for entrepreneurs.

The largest infant market brand Kitazawa, one of the vice presidents of Bekin Corporation and president of China, said in an interview that young consumers no longer tend to be the same, but pay more attention to personalization product We choose more brands with high cost performance ratio, which brings pressure to traditional brands.

In addition, maternal and infant enterprises also need to increase personalized design to attract more young consumer groups. In recent days, the voice of mother and child e-commerce has kept declining, and many mother and child e-commerce businesses have closed down offline. Beize said that the mother and baby e-commerce has developed very fast in recent years, and it is normal for the industry to adjust at one time. The mother and baby e-commerce will also develop. It is estimated that in three years, it will occupy 50% of the market share, and then the share will be difficult to continue to grow, because as a heavy marketing industry, offline mother and baby stores are equally important, and will divide most of the offline markets.

From the perspective of the overall market size, China, as the second largest consumer of maternity and infant products after the United States, has a large maternal and infant market. It is a market with a scale of trillions. Liu Lihua, senior analyst of Data Center, said that the transaction scale of China's mother and baby market has expanded, and the online market has expanded rapidly. After the introduction of the "two child policy", it is predicted that there will be an increase of 200 billion people in the next few years.

Based on the above forecast, Liu Lihua said: "In 2018, the size of the entire maternal and infant industry will reach 3.2 trillion yuan, and there is still a lot of room for the future maternal and infant market. Brand demand is rising, and consumers are increasingly valuing brand endorsement. From the perspective of the large brand pattern, the entire maternal and infant industry market, consumers' brand awareness is growing."

According to the 2016 Big Data Report on Maternal and Infant Industry Consumption Trends released by the data center, consumers pay more attention to brand selection in the purchase of advanced categories of maternal and infant products. Consumers pay more attention to their brand endorsement for advanced categories, and the improvement of the overall brand awareness of the crowd is also reflected in these advanced high-end products.

But at the same time, the overall brand competition in the maternal and infant market is intensifying, and the brand concentration of each category is showing a downward trend. The difficulty of attracting consumers only by "well-known brands" has also begun to increase. The market share of middle brands and niche brands has gradually increased, which has impacted the position of head brands.

In this regard, Beize said that at present, the top brands in the maternal and infant industry are really under pressure. Consumers have more diversified choices of brands, no longer blindly follow the trend, but pay more attention to cost performance and personalization. For this situation, Beize will rely on strengthening product personalized design, and will also consider acquiring some local brands with development potential, Even introduced European and American brands into the Chinese market.

Maternal and infant industry refers to the sum of consumer goods such as clothing, food, housing and transportation related to the consumption of pregnant women and infants. According to product form, the mother infant market can be divided into mother infant products and mother infant services, among which mother infant services include education, medical care, entertainment and other service industries. Maternal and infant products refer to the industries that meet the needs of pregnant women and children of all ages in terms of clothing, food, housing, transportation, education, entertainment, etc. They mainly cover eleven categories, including milk powder, nutritional supplements, diapers and wet wipes, feeding supplies, cleaning supplies, baby carriages and beds, safety seats, toy books, children's clothing and shoes, clothing and bedding.

In addition, with the vigorous development of the Internet and mobile Internet, the habit of online shopping has gradually formed, which has also promoted the market scale of mothers and babies online to increase significantly. However, a series of mother and child e-commerce financing has been in trouble recently, and a large number of mother and child e-commerce losses or even closures have cast a shadow on mother and child online channels.

In this regard, Beize said that from the perspective of Bekin's development in China, the sales of mother and baby e-commerce channels have been growing at a high speed. At present, it has occupied 35% of Bekin's sales share, and is expected to reach 50% of the market share in the next three years. The whole mother baby market may also reach this proportion, and it will be difficult to grow in the future, because offline channels are also of great significance.

Why are offline channels still meaningful?

Beize said that in Japan, e-commerce channels accounted for less than 10% of the sales of the mother and baby market, because mother and baby are a heavy marketing industry. Many new parents are not familiar with the mother and baby industry, and they attach great importance to the selection of mother and baby products. Therefore, they choose offline stores.

In Japan, offline stores have meticulous services and are recognized by consumers. However, in China, the awareness of offline channel services is poor and it is difficult to give consumers a good purchase experience. Therefore, the development of online channels brings opportunities, but it does not mean that consumers' offline needs will disappear. Therefore, many mother and child stores focusing on services have begun to make efforts, This part of maternal and infant stores will divide most of the online and offline markets of the maternal and infant industry.

From the perspective of demand, the mainstream new mothers of mother and infant consumers have multiple identities. They not only shoulder the responsibility of raising babies, but also are core members of a family, leading the consumption decisions of the whole family. In addition, they also play the social role of professional women. Under multiple identities, they have a lot of consumption needs.

For example, as a newborn mother, she may consider not only the clothing, food, housing and transportation of the baby, but also the growth and education of the baby; When selecting a bottle, she should consider both the material of the bottle and the growth cycle of the baby; All kinds of demands have contributed to the super long life cycle of the mother and baby market and the long tail and wide radiation industrial chain.