Kids and babies: Many nappy returns for retailers

Take pity on the parents of under-fives. They may be confused, sleep-deprived and eyeing up the whiskey selection behind your counter with undisguised hunger, but treat these poor souls (and their offspring) with care as they could offer a welcome boost to your bottom line.

The fact is that there are more new parents about in the UK than in the past 30 years. In the period 2011-12, more babies were born than any year since 1972, according to the Office for National Statistics.

And as that batch of kids crawls towards school age it gives their parents plenty of time to make a serious dent in your baby and toddler stock (and alcohol aisle).

This group’s especially time-pressured approach to shopping means they’re likely to spend more in-store than better-rested non-parental customers. According to Kantar Worldpanel, parents spend £5.17 more per shopping trip than non-parents, a 38% boost to basket spend.

After all, parents don’t just come in and buy nappies and baby wipes - while they’re looking for something for their little ones they’ll also be thinking about ingredients for tonight’s dinner, or topping up on their household essentials.

Vic Grewal, who owns a Simply Fresh store in Thames Ditton and a Budgens in Chorleywood, says that the arrival of customers toting babies and toddlers to his stores tends to be linked to the ebb and flow of the school run, since the kids often have older siblings.

“There’s quite a big crowd of parents where we are,” says Vic. “What you tend to see is parents coming in for the school run buying snacks or something for the older children’s lunchboxes. Then they’ll come in and get something for the younger ones on the way back from dropping the older one at school.

“Some parents even come in and do all their main food shopping, alongside their kids, before the school run starts. Then it happens again about 4pm! There’s a rush of parents looking for something for their family dinner.”

As Vic’s experience illustrates, parents - with their time-intensive lives often spent juggling work and childcare - make the perfect audience for the convenience store offer. And if you manage to shave time off their daily shop, and provide them with everyday necessities such as nappies and baby formula, they’ll often become your biggest fans.

With this in mind, most c-store retailers won’t need much persuading that parents, and the under-fives they bring in with them, are the kind of high-value customers they need to attract.

But how do you signpost to the wider community that your store is parent-friendly? A good place to start could be having a long, hard look at the width of your aisles.

Modern buggies can sometimes look more like tanks than pushchairs and need space for a wide turning circle if parents are to get around easily in a store. Forward-thinking store owners bear this in mind when considering store layout.

“A while back we had a look at how big our aisles were and decided to widen them so that buggies and the like could get in,” says Dennis Williams from Premier Broadway in Edinburgh.

“I think it’s turned out great, because the more space you have the more people you can fit in and the more space that they have to shop! It’s also about keeping the store tidy and removing boxes and other items off the floor so buggies and kids can get around and people don’t trip over them,” he says.

Similarly, Vic has also put this thinking into practice by making his aisles wide enough so that two buggies can easily pass each other without any fuss or backing up.

He agrees that paying attention to practical but thoughtful details such as this are a great way to attract parents, and keep them coming back.

“The overall store atmosphere also goes a long way with parents,” adds Vic. “If there’s pleasant, calming music and lots of space for the customers to move around in, then the customer’s journey through the store with kids will always be easy. And that’s what we want - to be as convenient as possible.”

Of course, you could be the most parent-friendly c-store in your county, but it’s still vital to get the baby and toddler range right, which can be a tall order since it’s a definite ‘long-tail’ category with many product spin-offs around core items.

According to SHS Sales & Marketing, using data from IRI, nappies top category sales in convenience (making up 35% of the market), followed by milk (26%), food (18%) wipes (15%) and toiletries (6%).

What you decide to stock, as ever, depends on your local customers’ needs. So while Dennis believes that parents “shop the store” as a whole rather than coming in solely for the baby or toddler category, Vic really goes to town with it.

“In our bigger store we really do offer everything that parents would need,” he says. “So we’ve got the nappies, the cosmetics, the soaps - even chilled food for them. We get a planogram from Budgens and they really do their research.

“Everything sells and the products that don’t do so well will go in six months to be replaced by something else.”

Fresh and chilled food is an especially important part of Vic’s stock, and he believes it accounts for up to 50% of sales. He says this figure stands in the toddler/baby category, too, as customers come in to buy fresh fruit and vegetables for their toddlers and even weaning babies.

“You see a lot of parents coming in and buying things such as fresh strawberries and grapes for kids to eat on the go,” he says.

“They like to get something healthy, and that often means something fresh.”

However, it isn’t exclusively healthy options that parents are seeking out from the snack aisle to satisfy their children. Vic says he also does well with cakes and biscuits where younger kids are concerned.

Nappy days

Of all the dedicated baby products, nappies are one of the most contentious for c-stores. They’re relatively expensive, take up lots of space - and you need a variety of sizes to really make them work. Yet despite this, Vic says that they’re a must-stock at his larger store.

“We do seven different types of nappies - that’s all the main brands. We really are trying to cater to whatever people could want,” he says. “The price point has never really been an issue with our customers. That’s mainly because Budgens’ prices for nappies are pretty standard.

“With baby and toddler stuff I also think that if it’s priced right people aren’t going to rush off anywhere else for the sake of 50p or a pound off the price.”

Baby wipes

Rather than simply being an add-on to the parental armoury, baby wipes are becoming a core component in the kiddie care category. While brand sales of nappies declined 1% in 2013 (according to Mintel), baby wipes grew 1.6% in the same period.

“Baby wipes, which display the highest product penetration at 85%, are the only segment of the market to see sales growth in 2013,” says Charlotte Libby, senior beauty analyst at Mintel.

“The own-label share of this market has historically always been high and therefore is not as affected by changes in consumer habits. Indeed, it is branded products such as Huggies, Pudgies and Adorana which have seen the strongest sales increases in the baby wipes market, driving the rise in value sales.”

Whatever you decide to stock, most retailers agree that when dealing with parents of young children it pays to be what Dennis calls “diplomatic” - especially if they’ve got a crying baby and a grumpy toddler in tow.

“I think you’ve got to be a wee bit diplomatic in these situations and that’s where you’ve got to use your own discretion and offer some good customer service,” he says. “That’s the key to this: it’s all about being civilised and treating people as you’d like to be treated yourself.

Lucky break

Dennis has found a solution to keeping the kiddies and their parents onside by creating a lucky dip box filled with cheap toys and novelties. “Every so often you can let the kids put their hands in and they get something for nothing,” he says.

“That’s great, and it’s just doing that little bit extra - plus it keeps them quiet for a bit!”

His generosity also stretches to buying into the tradition of giving a token gift to the baby’s parents. “It’s like giving the mother of a newborn baby a couple of pounds to put in their bank account, it’s just a lovely gesture but it makes a real difference.”

Dennis says that the pleasure of seeing local kids grow up as they come in with their mums and dads can be a reward in itself. And going the extra mile with customer service also means that you’ll win over more customers for the future.