Mother And Baby Market: The Opportunity Of Differentiation Under Hai Tao

There is no doubt about the huge space of the mother infant market. According to Analysys International, the scale of the current market may be around 2 trillion yuan.

along with

With the opening up and the improvement of people's living standards, the mother infant market will continue to grow at a high speed.

In addition, the mother infant category has good scalability, which is highly related to the market of early education, parent-child entertainment and local life services, and has a firm foothold in the mother infant market. There is also the possibility of widening the boundaries of products and services.

We are no stranger to vertical mother to child business. It has appeared many years ago, and its leader is the red child.

The red child was founded in 2004, and soon became the largest vertical mother to child e-commerce website. However, with the continuous efforts of Jingdong, Tmall, Dangdang and other integrated e-commerce platforms in the category of mother and infant, the performance of red children has been greatly affected. It must have been committed to the Su Ningyun business at the price of 66 million US dollars in 2012.

Although many people attributed the difficulties encountered by red children to conflicts between investors and founding teams, and out of control of company management, I think the most fundamental reason is that performance has been greatly affected by the extrusion of comprehensive e-commerce platform, and thus various contradictions have been concentrated.

The sale of red children basically announced the end of the first generation of vertical mother to child e-commerce exploration.

However, in recent two years, there have been some new changes in the maternal and child market: more and more parents began to choose foreign products, and the Zulily was listed successfully in the United States.

These changes have made many enterprises aware of opportunities, so the vertical mother to child electronic business has become a hot topic in the development of the industry. Many companies have got huge financing, but what is the difference this time?

The opportunity to differentiate under the sea

Because of the difference of commodity tax system and the differential pricing of brands, there is a very big price difference between domestic and foreign mother and infant products, which provides a basis for the development of Hai Tao.

At the same time, because of the concerns about the quality and safety of domestic products, more and more parents, especially the younger generation, began to take overseas commodities as their first choice, which provided new opportunities for the development of vertical mother to child electronic business.

Milk and diapers are all very standard products in all products related to mother and baby, consumers only recognize a few brands, and price information is open and pparent.

Honey bud baby is from these two categories as a breakthrough point, through the very attractive price in a short time to achieve the rapid accumulation of user volume, hit the brand.

However, the problem of this mode is that milk powder and diapers are only drainage products. It is difficult for enterprises to earn money in these two categories, and it is even more difficult to form the core competitiveness of vertical electric providers.

On the one hand, milk powder and diapers basically cover only 0~3 years old children. The user retention time is too short and the value is difficult to maximize. On the other hand, the gross profit margin of these categories is very low, and it is almost the core category of all the integrated e-commerce platform and vertical electricity supplier. The competition is fierce.

More importantly, as a standard category, milk powder and diapers are difficult to achieve differential operation, and no differentiation is very easy to replace.

Honey bud baby enterprises of the same kind, relying on the Dongfeng sea, rely on their early start to achieve differentiated products, but at present, Jingdong, Tmall and other comprehensive electricity providers have quickly followed up, the original differentiation will gradually become a standard, which is expected to bring more and more pressure.

Therefore, for honey bud baby, the more important thing is whether we can make use of the flow brought by these two categories to drive the cross selling of other maternal and infant related products, and really precipitate the users, so as to maximize the flow and user value, and let the company become the first stop for mother and child consumption from a place where users clean up cheap milk powder and diapers.

We can see that honey bud baby is making such efforts.

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Opportunities for non-standard category entry

Speaking of mother and baby business, we usually think of milk powder and diapers, but the biggest category in this field is actually

The gross profit rate is relatively high. Other potential categories include children's products, children's toys, maternity supplies, etc.

But in most of the categories of electricity suppliers, the biggest proportion is the milk powder, diapers, children's shoes, children's products and other non-standard categories are very small, because milk powder, diapers are highly standardized, and most likely to generate sales.

The problem is that the value of traffic is not fully utilized, making it difficult to make money.

Zulily is an American limited time sale electric provider targeting mother's consumer group. It was listed on NASDAQ in November 2013.

Unlike other vertical mother to child businesses, Zulily sells mainly non-standard products such as children's wear, children's shoes, children's toys, women's clothing and household products, rather than milk powder and diapers.

In these categories, on the one hand, consumers do not have strong brand awareness; on the other hand, the number of brands and suppliers is very large, but lack of absolute leader, which makes Zulily have a very large operational space in the choice of goods and suppliers, and the right to speak is also stronger.

At the same time, compared to milk powder and diapers can only cover children 0~3 years of age, these categories can be covered to about 10 years old, the user's value can be more fully excavated.

More importantly, these are non-standard categories, making it easier to differentiate, so that the giants will be shut out.

The successful listing of Zulily has made the mother and baby business in China see another way of counterattack, and the most similar businesses in China have also received huge financing.

Instead of adopting proprietary mode, Beckham is positioned as a special selling platform for mother and infant.

However, compared with other platforms, she has more in-depth involvement in the supply chain, and has established a professional operation team. One to one service businesses, besides shipping, have completed other links including sales, customer service, after sales, and so on. This ensures the user experience to a maximum extent.

Of course, after all, it is still in the early stages of development whether or not we can stand firm in the non-standard category.

However, once this field has laid a solid foundation and won the trust of users, it will occupy a very advantageous position in the field of mother infant electronic business.

Opportunities for vertical community electricity providers to cash in

Mothers are lonely and need to be accompanied, especially when they face the first pregnancy and first birth, so the trigger point for their mother and baby needs is the acquisition and sharing of knowledge.

This can certainly come from the guidance and recommendation of relatives and friends, but the vertical network community is playing an increasingly important role.

Professional content and goods are two core needs coexisting between mother and infant users. Taobao, Jingdong, and some other vertical electric providers only satisfy their demand for commodities, while the vertical communities such as baby trees, spicy mama, and mom net satisfy their demand for professional content, as well as the desire to share and communicate.

Over the past two years or so, the hot Ma Ma net, baby tree, and female menstrual assistant, Mei pomelo and aunt, have completed huge amounts of financing.

Around the knowledge acquisition and experience sharing of women's childcare, life and so on, they have gained a large number of users. Next, the electricity supplier has become a strategic development direction, and is also a very important means of realization.

They want to link the needs of mothers and children to professional content and the demand for commodities smoothly. This is a scenario based electricity supplier mode based on professional content. It is an attempt of electric business based on the establishment of more emotional connections with users, which is difficult to imitate and substitute for other e-commerce sites.

In a word, although we have gone through some unsuccessful attempts, we are delighted to find that the vertical mother to child business is booming again, and it shows some different characteristics and play. This is the correct way and attitude of vertical electricity supplier. I believe there will be more and more similar products in other categories.