As the e-tailing industry is booming rapidly, funding and acquisition activities have also increased. Especially, these activities are happening in the online retail segment related to kids and baby care products triggering the competition further. There are few reliable and trustworthy brands that are available offline and the online retailers get a chance to entice parents by providing global brands and products that are rate to find in the physical retail stores.
One of the popular online stores meant for kids and baby products is FirstCry that follows an omni channel strategy including over 100 offline shops. The retailer has introduced global apparel brands and feeding range and also announced partnership with five new global kids wear brand such as Pinehill and Ed Hardy. The firm also tied up with Fisher-Price back in December to provide feeding range and diapers in the country. Notably, recently FirstCry has raised Rs 156 crore from investors led by Valiant Capital.
Regarding this, Supam Maheshwari, Founder and CEO of FirstCry claimed that there is a growing demand for products such as in-house safety equipment, car seats for babies, sterilization for bottles and others from middle class households. The retailer sources such necessary products from the global markets to meet the requirements of parents. The e-tailing firm is also in plans to add more categories to its in-house brand BabyHug that currently deals with apparel and still account to one fourth of the sales.
Another kids and baby care online retailer, Hopscotch is working on exclusivity and experience in order to popularize its products. They are setting up pop-up stores and temporary outlets via tie-ups with global boutiques. The firm is aiming to mimic the success achieved by US based Zulily, a flash sale website meant for children’s and women’s apparel.
Commenting on this, Rahul Anand, Co-Founder and CEO of Hopscotch said that the firm is planning to make it an engaging experience for mothers by providing global brands and packaging it impressively. The firm is aiming to expand their buying team to 150 people and add more categories including baby foods.
The baby products shopping is need driven and the absence of a strong offline presence of global brands and the growing demand from young parents will definitely drive the online business in this category.
