A baby shop is among the best business ideas you could ever have as an entrepreneur. It’s a fact that babies are constantly being born every day, and new parents, uncles, and aunties will always be looking to get that little bundle of joy something in the form of clothing, diapers, furniture, baby food, toys, and other essential baby items. This business entails so much more than merely selling baby clothing. It is about providing new fathers and mothers a place where they can locate everything they need for their little ones in one place and saves them the hassle of having to physically look for them.
In the current digital landscape, the best way of ascertaining that your business receives traction is by having your baby shop online. So if you are thinking about venturing into the baby product space, you will need to know what it takes to start a thriving baby online shop. Starting a baby online shop doesn’t necessarily begin with the purchase of your first batch of baby products or first client order. It is preceded by a comprehensive evaluation of the business niche.
Business Relevance
Although the birth rate has been gradually reducing in recent years, over a million little ones are born each year. And we are talking about newborns alone – we haven’t put in teenagers, schoolchildren, preschoolers, and babies. Their loved ones can be the target of your baby online store. It can also play in your favor if you carry out statistics for your locale and neighboring areas. You can operate your online enterprise within your area code before going out to near regions.
Market and Competitor Assessment
To evaluate the potential market for selling baby products online, you can begin by searching ‘baby shop online’ and look at the search results that pop up. You can repeat this action for your area also. The direct rivals of your potential baby shop online will be the sites that appear in the TOP-10 search results.
It is integral that you get results for individual product segments, for instance, ‘baby products’, ‘baby outerwear’, etc. Take your time reviewing the top baby online stores and the features they use on their respective websites.
Target Audience Analysis
The main target audience of an online baby clothing shop is largely moms. This particular demo is characterized by the following features:
- They prefer shopping online since it is hard to go physical shopping with little ones;
- They are super active on social networks and forums, which provides an excellent avenue for marketing;
- They are more inclined to purchase cheap baby products online but can spend considerably more on baby products within their budget.
Don’t constrain yourself to the characteristics of just ‘mothers’ – come up with the most detailed framework possible. For instance:
- Married;
- Woman, 25-40 years
- Full/part-time worker
- Average income
- One or two kids
- Fond of handmade clothes (knits, sews).
A single baby online shop can have multiple target audience groups. It is integral that you frame a similar description for all of them to better envisage the product categories they may be appealing and what sort of market is best for them.
Range of Products
How well or badly your business performs is contingent on the collection of its products. Each product category is provided by a wide selection of suppliers, and you may find it challenging to locate the most ideal ones among them.
Online shops can opt to go with one of these strategies:
- Dealing with one line of clothing (for instance: for newborns, school uniforms, denim, sportswear, etc.);
- Merging multiple categories in one segment.
The first strategy needs fewer expenses, it is simple to roll out marketing campaigns, however, an online baby shop like that is highly contingent on seasonality and other variables (for instance, school uniforms will be in demand in August as opposed to the winter season). The second instance makes the baby shop less dependent on factors like that but needs high costs for marketing, staff, warehouse, etc.
In a wider net, the collection of children and baby online store can be categorized by age groups:
- For newborns. When it comes to newborns, comfort and quality are key. The skin of newborns may have an adverse reaction to poor-quality knitwear, which means the online baby shop will receive negative reviews on platforms where mothers are most active. Another key feature of this group is the total absence of fashion fads in this clothing group. It’s seldom that something new pops up, therefore even if a batch isn’t offloaded within three months, the baby product won’t go out of fashion.
- For preschoolers and toddlers (6 months – 7 years). Normally, a kid will grow out of their clothes, stain and rip them, which is why most mothers opt to go for cheap baby products online. However, even cut-price children’s products should be wear-resistant, comfortable, and have no requirements for care, and also be bright enough to appeal to the eyes of both parents and children alike.
- For schoolchildren. School uniforms are an essential component of the collection since children are in school most of the time.
- For teenagers. These are more ‘grown-ups’ and usually want to look fashionable. If you plan to catalog products for this group, ensure that you are up-to-date with the latest fashion trends and constantly update your collection.
As you can see, all that goes into starting a successful baby online shop is careful planning and execution. So take the aforementioned into account and you’ll be all set!
