Demand for baby clothing?

[BobTheKillerGoldfish]

As we all know there are lots of babies and young mothers in the UK. Does anyone know what the baby clothing market is like? I may be wrong and there may be a low demand but I don't know.

 

[DesignerNick]

People need to clothe their babies, however before you start a business you should really be doing some market research rather than just picking out niches.

Would you be able to compete with ASDA George, Tesco, Primark on the cheaper clothes and then Pumpkin Patch etc on the expensive ones?

 

[spiritadventures]

Having a 1 y/o I would say my primary issue with baby clothes is cheapness- babies out grow their clothes evey 3 months as newborns or clothes get ruined with spills etc. and so you want average to high quality at low prices....Places such as Tesco, Matalan, Asda etc do this extremely well and I personally think it would be very hard to compete with that..but perhaps market research would paint a different picture?...I think there could possibly be more scope in innovating new baby products?When my daughter was a newborn, I would always be thinking wouldn't it be great if someone invented such and such etc.

 

[deniser]

The baby clothes market is now dominated by supermarkets, discount retailers and big chains. The independent childrenswear boutique is all but gone from our high streets and any that do survive beyond the first three years only do so on the strength of their internet sales.

 

[grazzenger]

The baby clothes market is now dominated by supermarkets, discount retailers and big chains. The independent childrenswear boutique is all but gone from our high streets and any that do survive beyond the first three years only do so on the strength of their internet sales.

cobblers, quite frankly. we turned over £9.5k last month, our 12th month of trading, 85% of that in-store.

 

[winsoar]

According to Google Insights the market is steady:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=baby clothing,baby clothes&cmpt=q

 

[deniser]

cobblers, quite frankly. we turned over £9.5k last month, our 12th month of trading, 85% of that in-store.

Do you think £9.5K is good? Of course it depends on your overheads but that turnover would not be sufficient to pay the overheads including staff and rent in many parts of the UK and leave you with a profit.

 

[deniser]

Baby/children's shops have the highest failure rate of the lot. I can find you lots of statistics if anyone is really interested.

The overall sales are consistent but the market share has shifted from independents to large chains.

I have been in the industry for many years and can see for myself how it has changed.

 

[TotallySport]

cobblers, quite frankly. we turned over £9.5k last month, our 12th month of trading, 85% of that in-store.

The Op is talking about babies, you seem to sell a full kids range so what percentage of the 9.5K is from your baby section?

 

[sandz]

My wife just started baby clothing business, Called "Twinability" right now only selling through facebook page.Its not just for twins but business started for twins and then got lots of interest from parents for kids of all ages. Basicaly she is buying plain clothes from distributors and customise them with embroidered phrases and names. So there is definatly a market for baby clothing but must have some kind of uniqueness.

 

[MancunianCreative]

People do seem to spend irrationally on babies

 

[downsouth]

Baby/children's shops have the highest failure rate of the lot. I can find you lots of statistics if anyone is really interested.

The overall sales are consistent but the market share has shifted from independents to large chains.

I have been in the industry for many years and can see for myself how it has changed.

got to agree with this one, not been in the industry for quite so many years but on the specialist lothing products we sell i can tell you that the large high st/supermarkets beats you hands down, often on a 2 or 3 - 1 ratio on price of product.

Why offer clothing at £25-£35 when the parent can get 'similar' own brands for less than a tenner especially when the baby outgrows the clothing inside a few months tops.

Had my fingers burnt on a few lines of the clothing/sizing over the past few years and am now a lot more selective on the stock we offer.

 

[jakebw]

your right on this, in the UK it's in the top ten list of website categories that fail.

 

[Steve Sellers]

As we all know there are lots of babies and young mothers in the UK. Does anyone know what the baby clothing market is like? I may be wrong and there may be a low demand but I don't know.

It's like this - mum says to dad "look I just bought these £40 trainers". Dad says to mum "baby will grow out of those trainers in 2-3 weeks". Mum says "but they are cute".

People are suckers for spending crazy money on their babies (and others babies).

I have just realised the last comment is spam. Apologies for bumping a thread bumped by spam!

 

[OsborBen]

Hello,

We have just recently started up a business called Tiny Angels Clothing and there is demand out there but it is tough and we only stock unique clothing from abroad so not your usual clothes you would get from a UK Retailer.

 

[ethical PR]

Any particular reason for dragging up a five year old thread?

 

[OsborBen]

Any particular reason for dragging up a five year old thread?

Sorry! Did not even realise this was 5 years old!