The winds of change are blowing for Indian parents, long used to leaning on an established circle of parents, in-laws and pediatricians for unsolicited and much needed advice on child rearing.
An unsolicited piece of advice stood out from all the social media noise that Prachi Arora, 31, a freelance writer and young mother, waded through every day.
On a Facebook group, another woman looked at a photo Arora had posted of her daughter and unilaterally declared that she might be autistic. Such a pronouncement came as a bolt from blue. “I lost sleep over it,” she says. Rather than panicking, she logged on to BabyChakra, a 22-month-old online platform for baby products and services to hunt for a solution. “My SOS was to a BabyChakra mother, who has an autistic child and also works with various experts in spreading awareness,” she adds. “A conversation with her helped me restore my peace and I also found a special needs educator who categorically ruled out this diagnosis.”
The winds of change are blowing for Indian parents, long used to leaning on an established circle of parents, in-laws and pediatricians for unsolicited and much needed advice on child rearing.
Parents today are getting more aware, using the internet to update their knowledge on the best products (and to hunt for the best services) for their children and shifting a market reliant on old networks.
Social change — with more young mothers returning to work quicker and joint families giving way to nuclear ones — is beginning to significantly change this market, with old and new companies jostling for a share of this segment — from the time a woman is expecting till the child turns five.
According to industry analysts and insiders, this isn’t an easy market to crack. For starters, some 90% of it is locked up with old-world offline baby product retailers — some 8,000 of them countrywide, according to one estimate. With fewer choices for their babies, Indians tend to buy fewer products or substitute adult ones. “From warehousing to last-mile delivery, everything associated with baby care is a difficult job,” says Supam Maheshwari, cofounder and CEO of FirstCry, a venture that has raised $76 million in funding from the likes of SAIF Partners, Vertex Ventures and IDG Ventures. “We are selling products — from diaper pins weighing 5 gm to car seats weighing 25 kg. Consumers want an expert and not a generalist to sell them these products.”
The Big Daddies
Perhaps the biggest obstacle, at least in consumer goods, is the domineering presence of Johnson and Johnson ( J&J), which owns nearly three-quarters of the market in which it operates.
“With our presence, historically, we have been the only brand trying to grow the size of this category,” says Ganesh Bangalore, marketing chief for J&J India. “There is a tremendous opportunity in this market.”
After being around for over a century (globally, and 70 years in India), J&J is looking to show that elephant can dance, by launching new products (Bedtime range, Top to Toe wash and Baby Milk soap, as well as more offerings for ailments such as diaper rash) as it seeks to hold its dominant position in this market.
Bangalore of J&J says that baby sleep is another area in which the company is interested. Indian babies sleep the least at night — for just nine hours — whereas American and New Zealander babies sleep around 11 hours. Indian babies wake up the maximum during sleep, at 2.07 times, as compared with babies from New Zealand getting sound sleep and waking up only .93 times followed by the UK at 1.06 times.
To try and improve these statistics, he proselytises the firm’s Bedtime products, which include a three-step ritual, beginning with a warm bath with Johnson’s Bedtime wash, followed by massaging the baby with a Bedtime lotion and then spending some quiet time with the infant/toddler.
Bangalore also says J&J has launched its Bestforbaby YouTube channel to spread worldwide learnings and tips from spending a century in the baby care business.
This behemoth’s looming presence and other complexities have already felled many players who have tried to enter this market offline in the last few years.
Offline, baby product retailers are dogged by concerns similar to others in the field such as high rentals, people turnover and slim margins. Online, companies need to build a large enough inventory and strong supply chain backbone to deal with the wide array of orders in this sector. “It is difficult for horizontal ecommerce companies to service this market,” says FirstCry’s Maheshwari. “Consumers, especially mothers, look for a specialist for their needs, not a generalist.”
Anupama C, 28, a banker, lives with her husband and two-year-old son in South Mumbai. Bringing up their son without the help of extended family means she’s constantly looking for new ways to save time with her parenting, even as she meets crazy work deadlines. In the last six months alone, she has ordered a car seat, diapers and baby clothes off FirstCry and, elsewhere, located a baby sitter and playschool too. “Food, diapers, toys… there’s a lot that’s constantly changing for the better and as parents we must keep up,” she says.
Charge of the Tiny Tots
According to an estimate by Research and Markets, the average amount an Indian parent spends on their babies is expected to double in the next four or five years. In turn, this is creating fresh opportunities for companies such as BabyChakra.
“We want to build a trusted platform for children and parents in India,” says Naiyya Saggi, a former rainmaker with management consultancy McKinsey, who used her learnings in the field of maternal and child health to start her fledgling venture.
“A massive opportunity stood out to disrupt the way parents made choices,” she adds. “We have 17,000 service providers listed across three cities (Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi), with 5,00,000 users logging in every month.”
These numbers mean that BabyChakra is building a platform that hopes to disrupt the way parents make choices. “We are focused on building the next wave of users that is going to drive how online markets and information works.”
So, BabyChakra’s services today cover everything from infertility experts to playschools, as it seeks to reel in more users to its platform. While Saggi is focused on increasing the number of users for BabyChakra, she is also looking to increase the number of people who stick to the platform and the frequency with which they log in.
Other companies are also looking at this information gap and changing family dynamics. One such area is nutrition, where young parents, mothers specifically, are hunting for quick yet healthy fixes to feed their children.
“As mothers ourselves, we struggled to find breakfast and snack options for our children,” says Meghana Narayan, a cofounder of Slurrp Farm, a provider of food for babies and (soon) young mothers.
“We are devising food you can prepare at home, without additives, focusing on just the basics of taste and quality.” For example, the startup has devised options such as a nutritious porridge with wholegrain cereals and readyto-serve cold milk breakfast options and cookies for teething babies.
“We eventually want to get into food for pre- and post-natal mothers. All our offerings are based on traditional recipes our grandmothers would have made,” she adds. First-hand experience proved handy for Narayan and cofounder Shauravi Malik.
“When we first conceived of this idea, we didn’t have kids and lived abroad,” Narayan explains. “We were besieged with requests from friends to bring back products for their kids.”
Sensing a gap, the duo set up Slurrp to devise healthy, organic, preservative-free options using quality ingredients.
“We learnt our lessons along the way — parents in India, for example, didn’t want completely ready-to-feed food for children. They were looking at ready-to-serve options, since they wanted control over the ‘last mile’ of what their children ate,” she says.
The company is gaining some traction with its products. Unlike in the West, Indian children have the same (or very similar) food that their parents eat. Then there are factors such as under and malnutrition — many kids irrespective of economic strata are eating too much of the wrong type of food and there’s an opportunity to set this right. The founders are talking to both online and offline retailers to vend their products and after an initial pilot with 20 stores, a Delhi and online launch are currently underway and they hope to make a bigger splash across Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai next year.
Already, the duo have snagged some loyal fans. “Slurrp Farm did a pilot last year, and not just my kids but the entire family loved their cookies,” gushes Shivani Gandhi, a parent.
“We prefer them to others because of the ingredients they use. Their products have a high percentage of ragi, whole wheat flour and real butter (not palm oil).”
At the other end of the size spectrum, consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever is looking to extend the strength of its Dove brand into baby care.
“With growing disposable incomes and awareness, more and more mothers are beginning to use specialist baby care products,” says Prabha Narasimhan, vice-president, skin care, HUL. After building Dove into a `1,000 crore brand, she believes it can be extended to baby care.
“For over 50 years, Dove has been listening to women… Now, for the first time, Baby Dove will be doing the same for the most important person in a woman’s life — her baby,” she adds.
For a start, Baby Dove will focus on areas such as moisturisers for babies, before extending its brand beyond. “Babies’ skin loses moisture up to five times faster than adults and therefore it is important to choose products that replenish the moisture of delicate baby skin,” says Narasimhan.
“The new Baby Dove range has been created to support mothers… with products that go beyond mildness to replenishment.”
Then, in August this year, yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved also joined the scramble by launching its baby care products (hair oil, massage oil, body lotion and body wash gel) under a new brand called Sishu Care. These products will be priced between Rs 70 and Rs 85 for 100 ml packs, a rate competitive with market leader J&J.
Baby Care Choices
Bengaluru-based Himalaya Drug Company — still best known for liver care product Liv52 — has been steadily building its baby care business and in the last couple of years it seems to have been given a growth booster.
In spite of the growth of its own portfolio and those of market leader J&J, HUL and Dabur, these companies have a long way to go. “Despite the growth of large companies and startups, baby and mother care is a vast and underserved market in India,” says Philip Haydon, president and CEO, Himalaya Drug Company.
Even at Rs 2,500 crore (an estimate from market researcher Nielsen which is double the more conservative estimate from Euromonitor), the scope of this market in India may be undervalued.
“Many people are using regular products for their babies — soaps in urban India alone is an Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore business, for example. There’s a massive opportunity to move these consumers to products more suited to babies,” he adds.
Already, Himalaya has a strong presence in segments such as pre-bath (massage oil), bath (soap, bubble bath) and post-bath (creams, lotions and curatives). And as consumer spend on babies increases, Himalaya is expanding its range. For instance, it has forayed into wet wipes and diapers.
Now, it is looking not just at babies, but at young mothers as an extension of this push. “We are looking at women during pregnancy and beyond,” says Haydon. “We are looking at products to pamper them such as massage oils, soothing baby butter and nipple care and anti-rash items.”
Some parents appear unsure which way to go. While they trust older brands (the likes of Dove and Dabur and Co have been around for decades) and buy their products without question, being increasingly aware of new trends has them torn.
After living in a small town in Tamil Nadu for years, Sandra S, 25, was used to advice from family and friends to use adult consumer care brands on her six month-old baby.
Then, she moved to Mumbai to discover a far larger range of baby-specific brands. “There are so many options here for us, but I have to rely often on knowledge from strangers to make a choice, rather than the familiar words of family,” she says. “This is a difficult choice to make, but a changing environment compels us to make fresh choices.”
Even for the largest companies, the biggest headache may be changing mindsets. “This is a challenging market, since Indian consumers are replacing trusted, age-old, homemade baby care offerings with our products,” says Rana Banerjee, head, marketing, healthcare, Dabur, the 132-year old consumer goods company.
With its recent Dabur Baby offering, the company needs to be more cautious with its launches.
“We need to be really careful at product level… babies are sensitive with skin, hair, oral care products and more prone to infections and other health hazards,” says Banerjee.
The firm spent the last two years building its new baby care business, and is keen to launch products in segments such as massage oils, soaps, shampoos and moisturisers.
Dabur also wants to extend its core ayurveda business into baby care. According to Banerjee, the relative lack of (safe) branded options is compelling Dabur to step on the gas.
“In sectors such as massage oils, organised players account for 11% of the market,” he explains. While Dabur is best recognised for its Lal Tel massage oil, company executives are keen for some fresh impetus to their baby care unit.
Compared with the presence of HUL, Dabur and Himalaya, Mohit Sadaani’s Amishi Life, a startup founded just a few months ago in May 2016, is a lightweight. Sadaani and his wife had their first child in the UK and were pleasantly surprised by the plethora of baby care options.
In contrast, the second time around, this time in India, they found much slimmer pickings. “For paranoid parents, there are not enough safe and natural baby care products in India,” he says. “Educated and aware parents are willing to look beyond big brands for their baby’s personal care needs.”
After raising a seed round of funding recently, Sadaani’s firm will shortly launch a series of personal care products, including bodywash, shampoo and lotions for expectant women and young mothers. “Indian mothers are willing to consider natural and safe products for their babies,” he contends.
If fledgling startups are looking for some inspiration, FirstCry could provide some answers. The company, which Maheshwari cofounded in mid-2010, started with barely 1,000 products on its platform.
Then he quickly realised that being only online wouldn’t get him far. Back in 2011, he set up his first offline store and today FirstCry has some 180 stores operational and over 1,25,000 items listed.
“There is a lot more awareness in the market today than six years ago,” says Maheshwari. “Parents have different aspirations for their children… more than what they get from the neighbourhood store.”
FirstCry labels itself as Asia’s largest baby care store, and expects to have 700 offline stores in the next three or four years.
Some startups are looking at other fragmented baby and child care opportunities too.
Meeta Sharma Gupta of Shumee wants to crack the toys market. The former researcher with IBM is leaning on new learnings from psychology, which push children to be discoverers with their toys and encourage them to learn. All of Shumee’s toys are made of wood (but not traditionally handmade ones), use safe paint and are safer for the environment, says Gupta.
“The market for toys is highly fragmented and products from global brands are limited and costly,” says Gupta. To try and cut it in a market dominated by the likes of Mattel and Hasbro, Shumee will primarily be focused online, even as it seeks to look for new avenues for growth.
At an event in Mumbai, its wares were sold out on day one, even as the company sells around five to eight toys a day (each priced around `1,500). Gupta has hired full-time designers and is planning international sales too.
With over 26 million babies expected to be born in India every year, companies big and small are jostling for a share of this fast-growing market. The action may just be getting started.
(Source: The Economic Times dated 2016-10-02)
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