Focus On Infant and Childcare: 16 July

By Rob Brown rob_j_a_brown@hotmail.com 

Publishing: 16 July 2022
Advertising deadline: 1 July 2022
Submissions deadline: 24 June 2022

It’s a new kind of baby boom. In the last year the baby sector has grown 9% to £1.4bn in sales, according to Kantar. Growth in travel products is a leading cause, up by a third. So is this reflective of new post-pandemic habits? What role does online shopping have to play given that it comprises almost half of sales? And how will the category be affected by rising living costs?

Travel: Baby travel has proven especially popular as life returned to normal, with the category up 32% in the past year. Can this growth be sustained now post-lockdown habits are settling?

Online: Online shopping accounts for 47% of total sales, with spending per trip up 17% – three times that of physical trips. So why is the category proving so popular online? And what can supermarkets do to challenge the online leader Amazon?

Cost of living: Few people are as strapped for cash as young families. So is the cost of living likely to have an outsized effect in infant and childcare products?

Retailers: Tesco increased its baby sales by 29% in the past year, which Kantar says was mostly through attracting 1.3m new shoppers. How did it do it?

Innovations: We will profile 4 new products or ranges that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before. We need launch date, rsp, and a hi-res picture of each