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The start of 2020, first the epidemic hit the offline entity, followed by the shortage of masks, non-woven meltblown cloth prices, diapers factory production shutdown, the industry has called "this year is too difficult". As an infant consumer product with high frequency, how did diapers perform during the epidemic? Did they experience a "big rise" or a "big fall"? Which brands became winners, and which brands could grow against the trend under the epidemic?
 

According to the latest data from ECdataway Data Wei, the online summary scale of Q1 mother-infant related categories in 2020 will reach 61.87 billion, down 24.8 from Q1 in the same period in 2019. Among them, baby food and baby care have the fastest growth rates, up 38.6 and 36.8 respectively, toys/puzzles have fallen the most, and baby travel has also been greatly impacted. The epidemic has had a direct impact on all categories of mother and baby. Baby diapers (including diapers, pants, diapers, etc.) decreased by 0.6 compared to the same period last year, and the end market is currently stable.

Five major brands firmly in the head

The top 10 brands of diapers/diapers are Pampers, Curious, Kao Miaoershu, Dawang, Moony, Babu Bean, Mummy Baby, BabyCare, Anerle and Baby-friendly.

The whole baby diapers market brand concentration is high, from the data, Pampers, Curious, Flower King, King, Eunice five head brands are not affected by the epidemic.

Although the rising price of raw materials since March has brought a lot of survival pressure to some small and medium-sized enterprises, these big brands have maintained stable sales. On the one hand, the supply chain is well done, the consumer loyalty is relatively high, and the brand premium ability is strong. On the other hand, a core point is that raw material suppliers dare not rise or break, and give priority to these large and old customers.

Specifically, Pampers declined slightly, accounting for 15.2 per cent, still holding the top spot. Curiosity rose slightly, accounting for 11.3 percent. Kao accounted for 10.9 per cent, down 9 per cent. The probability is related to the Japanese epidemic, the flower king import wonderful and Shu series has been favored by many consumers, after the outbreak, logistics restrictions on the import of the product has a certain impact. Dawang increased by 38%. Dawang (Nantong) factory adopted the same standards and raw materials as Japan, and was self-sufficient in wood pulp. In March, it also launched a series of new diapers through the "live online" conference, further adding to the high-end market.

One of the more notable features during the epidemic was that brands with better online channel layout grew faster.

The epidemic puts higher demands on channel efficiency.

Tmall and Jingdong are still the two mainstream platforms on the baby diaper line. In 2020, Q1 Tmall baby diaper size reached 2.65 billion, Jingdong reached 2.26 billion, Jingdong grew 13% YoY. Industry data show that from January 20 to February 13, online e-commerce platform, Jingdong supermarket maternal and child product orders ushered in an explosive growth, a total of 0.4 billion pieces of baby diapers sales. JD's digital supply chain played a strong role during the epidemic.

Data show that in the distribution of e-commerce channels, foreign brands account for more than Tmall in Jingdong, and Hua Wang accounts for 54.4 in Jingdong. Curious, Tmall and Jingdong are the main platforms, with Jingdong accounting for slightly higher than Tmall. However, BabyCare, Anerle and Yiying account for a relatively high proportion of sales on Taobao Tmall. Head brand Jingdong accounted for a higher proportion, coupled with logistics and distribution capacity, resulting in Jingdong during the outbreak in the baby diaper category to achieve rapid growth.

In addition to the above analysis to the e-commerce platform, the combination of mobile and social micro-business market, the third-party social e-commerce platform to spell more than become the e-commerce and brand competition layout of one of the channels.

Pinduoduo is a force that cannot be ignored in the online channels of diapers in recent years. Because of its high permeability to low-tier cities, so the fight in the entire paper diaper line channel accounted for a relatively large, fight more has become a large number of big brand channels sinking new choice. For example, in order to tap new consumer markets, Curiosity and Pinduoduo have cooperated to provide Pinduoduo with Curious Silver or lower-end products.

The impact of micro-business channels on diapers should not be underestimated. According to relevant data, the scale of micro-business will be nearly 1 trillion in 2019. Among them, brands such as Kaier Dele, Miffy and Macey Theo have basically grown up through a hierarchical agency model, while many enterprises, including Hengan, have also laid out micro-business channels.

The outbreak has made us re-examine the industry. Under the background of consumption upgrading and new retail, consumers pay more attention to quality. For the high-end market and subdivided categories, brands still have a lot of room for development. Looking at the online sales battlefield of diapers, although in the epidemic range, foreign brands hold nearly 70% of the market share, but with the stability of the epidemic, the mask market tends to be rational, non-woven and other raw material prices returned to normal, consumer demand and social e-commerce and other channels of changes, domestic small and medium-sized diapers brand still has great opportunities for development.