Gel Fragrance Products and Wet Toilet Paper Lead the Trend
Gel flowers with fragrance have become a hit in the toilet category. Meanwhile, wet toilet paper outperforms the overall hygiene paper category. It is evident that home cleaning products are now key drivers of consumer market growth and economic recovery. These trends are also reshaping the wet toilet paper market, providing opportunities for niche and growing segments.
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Strong Growth Backed by Market Research
According to Nielsen IQ’s Retail Industry New Product Trends Report 2024, home cleaning products grew faster than all other categories in 2023. Kantar’s Consumer Index also confirms strong growth in the home cleaning segment during 2023.
JD Consumption and Industrial Development Institute’s 2024 Online Consumption Trends Report further reveals that several subcategories within home cleaning saw rapid growth. This momentum, driven by frequent use and disposable formats, is expanding new consumer demand.
According to Frost & Sullivan, the size of China’s home cleaning and care market was about 133.4 billion yuan in 2022. It’s expected to reach 167.7 billion yuan by 2024, with an 8.7% compound annual growth rate.
This sustained growth presents a golden opportunity for maternity and baby stores to expand into adjacent categories.
Fast-emerging Home Cleaning Products
The active growth of the home cleaning sector in the consumer market is primarily driven by two factors.
Firstly, people’s changing lifestyles in the post-pandemic era have led to increasing demands for home environments. Health, efficiency, and quality have become the core keywords. For example, in the field of clothing cleaning, new functional products have attracted more attention. In the field of home cleaning, consumers value product safety and convenient cleaning experiences. In the field of cleaning tools, consumers prioritize strong practicality and high cleaning efficiency.
Secondly, the arrival of the era of strong functionality has given rise to consumer demand for segmented populations and refined functionality in the home cleaning sector. As home cleaning brands, they now need to cater to the needs of different groups such as mothers and babies, sensitive skin users, pet owners and so on. They also need to fulfill scenario demands like travel and camping, as well as emotional demands like fragrant scents.
The continuous iteration and refinement of consumer demand for home cleaning products have opened up tremendous opportunities for category innovation and market expansion. The wet toilet paper is a typical example, experiencing a steep growth curve in a short period of time.
Explosive Growth of Wet Toilet Paper
The 2022 Home Cleaning Industry Consumption Trends Report states that the 2021 wet toilet paper consumption was four times that of 2019. The 2023 Wet Toilet Paper New Consumption Trends White Paper shows that consumers are shifting quickly from dry paper to wet toilet paper, with annual inflow growth exceeding 30%.
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Highly-matched Retail Channel
For maternity and baby stores, can they capitalize on the growth dividend of the home cleaning products? Absolutely. Firstly, the consumer demographics of maternity and baby stores align closely with those of the home cleaning products.
The 2022 Home Cleaning Industry Consumption Trends Report highlights four key consumer groups in the home cleaning sector:
- Z-generation consumers who value personalized, human-centered experiences
- Women who pursue a refined and quality lifestyle
- Budget-conscious housewives focused on cost-effectiveness
- Practical male homemakers who value functionality
These groups are not only the core consumers in the maternity and baby market,
but also the key decision-makers and users of home cleaning products.
Taking wet toilet paper as an example, the China Wet Toilet Paper Industry Status Deep Research and Investment Prospect Prediction Report (2022-2029) reveals that the current market structure of wet toilet paper is mainly concentrated in women and baby, accounting for nearly 80% combined. Among them, wet toilet paper for babies accounts for 48.23%, and wet toilet paper for women accounts for 31.45%.
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Offline Sales Channels Still Matter
Although competition is fierce, offline sales still dominate. About 70% of home cleaning products are sold through physical stores. Because of the product homogeneity in this sector, offline maternity and baby stores have more control through in-store display and promotion. This channel advantage makes them a key player in reaching consumers.
Secondly, in terms of channels, despite the intense competition in the home cleaning and care sector, offline sales still account for a large proportion, at approximately 70% of the overall market. This is due to the high degree of homogeneity among home cleaning products, often relying on channel push for sales, giving offline channels a certain degree of discourse power.
Conclusion: Seize the Growth
Considering the strong growth of the wet toilet paper market, the overlap in target demographics, and the importance of offline channels, home cleaning products present a compelling opportunity for maternity and baby stores to explore and scale. Now is the time to expand offerings and meet evolving family care needs.
