Kas Consulting: From January to October 2024, the sales of Douyin's top 1,000 maternal and infant brands increased by 44.5% year-on-year

There is no doubt that the maternal and infant industry has entered a inventory cycle.

Industry reports show that the growth rate of transaction scale in China's maternal and infant market has slowed down, and the growth rate is lower than before the epidemic . Users tend to be rational and cautious in decision-making, and pay more attention to cost-effectiveness. Under the influence of scientific and refined parenting concepts, the maternal and infant industry as a whole has improved its quality and expanded its capacity, entering the stage of quality consumption.

(Data source: Analysys International)

Among many e-commerce platforms, Douyin, a traffic giant with 700 million daily active users, still has a considerable growth rate for maternal and infant brands. Kas Consulting found that from January to October 2024, the sales of Douyin's TOP1000 maternal and infant brands increased by 44.5% year-on-year, which is basically the same as the 46% growth rate of the overall market announced by Douyin e-commerce.

It is true that the concentration of top brands in Douyin's e-commerce maternal and infant industry is increasing, but opportunities for sub-segments to be driven by extreme strengths still exist.

From January to October 2024, the estimated total sales of the TOP100 maternal and infant brands accounted for 70.62% of the sales of the TOP1000 brands, and the sales of the TOP20 maternal and infant brands accounted for 37.62% of the GMV of the TOP1000 brands.

Some tracks are no longer suitable for new players to enter, for example: baby diapers and cotton/paper products tracks are already extremely saturated, and the sales focus of milk powder is still offline. You need to think twice before entering these tracks.

But in some extremely segmented tracks, the benefits of Douyin e-commerce still exist.

In the care track, baby care has been the "star track" in the past two years . In addition to Bedmei, many mature brands (such as Kangaroo Mom, Red Elephant, etc.) have already placed bets, triggering a new round of internal competition. At present, the overall growth rate of the industry has slowed down, and brands need to target segmented categories and segmented populations before they can place bets.

In the baby and child products market, due to the high degree of product segmentation, the more subdivided the category (such as protective travel, home/bedding, feeding tools, etc.), the more lacking leading brands there are. There is still a chance to break through through explosive product strategies and refined operations.

In addition, the infant and child nutrition products and maternal and infant products sectors are easy to attract and convert, and remain the current opportunity sectors.

Data from Cicada Cube shows that the maternal and infant products track has advantages in terms of market size, brand inventory and product quantity. In 2023, its market size growth rate has far exceeded that of the infant and child market, and the brand success rate is higher.

In the Global Growth Strategy Class, I repeatedly emphasized the three key words for playing Douyin: algorithm, content and influencers. Under the algorithm, two kinds of thinking must be established: crowd thinking and track thinking.

In fact, when I analyzed the high-growth maternal and infant brands in 2024, I found that there was no one who was not well versed in crowd thinking and track thinking. At the CEO Summit of the Maternity, Infant and Child Industry two days ago, I gave a keynote speech on "The Breakthrough of Douyin in the Maternal and Infant Industry in 2025". This article is an excerpt of some of the content, which will analyze multiple dark horse brand cases and interpret the opportunities in the maternal and infant track.

Crowdthink:

Pay attention to positive feedback from people with the right tags

If a brand wants to operate in the Douyin e-commerce market for a long time, it must have a crowd-based mindset, especially in the competitive red ocean, it must find the brand’s target audience.

Why do we need to establish crowd thinking? It is essentially determined by the traffic distribution mechanism of Douyin. Whether it is content or products, they must serve people with correct labels, so as to stimulate their positive feedback. Only the positive feedback generated by people with correct labels can help to accurately push traffic models, accumulate high-quality crowd assets and increase business volume.

In the infant and child care market, Feihu has done a good job of demonstrating the concept of “misaligned competition” by combining crowd thinking.

Users familiar with the maternal and infant industry know that in the infant care track, Bedemei has done a good job in user education, infiltrating the concept of "age-based care" into the hearts of first- and second-tier exquisite mothers and fathers, and also established the user mindset of "use Bedemei for professional washing and care". From January to October 2024, the median value of the brand's cumulative sales on Douyin reached 912 million. Among them, the amino acid silicone-free shampoo for infants and children is the brand's biggest hit, and the single product contributes nearly 35% of the brand's sales.

As a competitor with similar product categories and price positioning, how did Feihu avoid direct competition with Beidemei?

I observed that the core is to differentiate itself from Bedme in two strategies.

First , in terms of influencer distribution, Feihu has relatively low restrictions on the types of influencers it distributes. Among the influencers with high sales, most are fashion influencers and those related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers. In other words, as long as the influencer's fan profile is similar to the target user, Feihu will send an invitation to bring goods, thus cleverly avoiding the strong competition with Beidemei in influencer distribution. Compared with non-vertical influencers, Beidemei, which has a brand image burden, prefers to cooperate with maternal and child and lifestyle influencers, so as to achieve the goal of bringing goods while accumulating water and planting grass for the brand;

Second, unlike Bedmei, whose main target group is new first-tier and first- and second-tier users, Feihu brand is targeting users in the sinking market. In order to achieve rapid penetration into this group, in terms of brand building and marketing, Feihu brand will also choose forms that are popular with users in the third- and fourth-tier cities and sinking markets, such as cooperating with active/retired athletes, celebrities, etc. at a lower cost to create the impression of being the same as celebrities.

On November 27, Feihu officially announced that Liu Wanting, the champion of the 72nd Miss World (China), would be its brand spokesperson. Subsequently, stickers with Liu Wanting’s image as the spokesperson were placed in Feihu’s major matrix live broadcast rooms to reduce the concerns of users entering the live broadcast rooms about placing orders.

Why does Feihu's strategy work on Douyin? In addition to its strong brand operation capabilities, it is also closely related to the user trends of the platform.

Data shows that on Douyin, the growth rates of maternal and infant users in third-tier, fourth-tier and fifth-tier cities were 31.06%, 79.27% ​​and 45.15% respectively, which are much higher than those in first-tier and second-tier cities (-67.81% and -10.24%). This means that low-priced, cost-effective brands or even white-label products have greater room for growth. Feihu just happened to hit such an opportunity window and seized its target group.

Kangaroo Mom also sees market opportunities among mothers and babies on Douyin.

Throughout 2023, Kangaroo Mom's best-selling products were maternal care products (such as facial and body skin care, cosmetics, etc.). By 2024, Kas Consulting found that Kangaroo Mom's growth rate exceeded 200%. The high growth was due to the creation of a new best-selling product - youth care products.

The creation of new explosive products benefits from Kangaroo Mom's deep insight into the core consumer groups. It is found that among heavy users, the proportion of mothers of second children is getting higher and higher. Mothers of second children who are in the pregnancy period not only have to buy their own special skin care products, but are also responsible for the purchase of household care products.

In this way, Kangaroo Mom, which has a good reputation, naturally became their main choice after promoting youth care products.

This actually gives us an inspiration: for mature brands, as long as the consumer group portrait is consistent, the A4 and A5 of the hot products can also be the A3 and A4 of the new products, and what the brand needs to do may be to carry out refined marketing, operation and delivery for this group of people, which, to some extent, also puts forward requirements for the digital capabilities of enterprises . Data shows that in the past 30 days, Kangaroo Mama has nearly 4,000 live broadcast traffic ideas and 2,428 product advertising ideas, all of which have been delivered by multiple self-operated accounts.

Track thinking:

Focus on segments that competitors have not yet occupied

In an era where choice is more important than hard work, choosing the right track means choosing the right direction for business growth.

As mentioned above, some tracks in the maternal and infant industry have become saturated, and new brands are no longer suitable to enter. However, some tracks still have great potential, and some brands have found the foundation for survival by choosing the right sub-tracks and serving sub-segmented needs.

A perfect example is Perdays. Since entering Douyin in 2023, Perdays has maintained a good growth trend. Sales have continued to rise, thanks to Perdays's constantly enriching channel layout, from Dabo to product cards, from merchant self-broadcasting to brand self-broadcasting, and it has methodically completed the full-area layout on Douyin.

In my opinion, Perdays did three things right:

First, the track was chosen well: it entered the blue ocean category in the opportunity track.

In the maternal nutrition market, calcium, iron, zinc and DHA are relatively red oceans, while maternal probiotics are a relatively blank niche market. Perdays' main product is a pregnancy probiotic with a sugar-control effect, which hits the blue ocean category in the maternal nutrition market.

At the same time, probiotics are "content-friendly" products that can clearly convey product value and selling points through content, accelerate user order conversion, and even leverage natural flow distribution. Data shows that Perday's paid flow accounts for about 40%, which is lower than the average paid flow share of maternal and infant nutrition products (70%).

Second, influencers make good use of it: SKA influencers’ ability to promote products is overwhelming.

Although Perdays has a good layout across the board, I think making good use of influencers and KOCs, especially SKA influencers (such as @小鱼孕期運動, @刘南希, etc.), is the key factor for overseas brands with relatively insufficient brand power to win. The so-called SKA influencers are those who I have summarized as having a low number of fans and average ability to bring goods in a single game, but have the advantage of being highly loyal to the brand, willing to bring goods for the brand in the long term, and can return to cooperate frequently and have high brand controllability.

By deeply binding with vertical influencers, such as pregnancy sports and fitness, maternal and child care/evaluation, and pregnancy nutritionists, Perdays has achieved the goal of promoting products while selling them. For good content from influencers and KOCs, brands will also leverage their value through remixing and Qianchuan delivery, and will also invite as many influencers/KOCs to use materials that can run in large quantities.

Third, the selling point is well-thought-out: what is being sold is not the product but the dream.

When choosing influencers and KOCs to cooperate with, Perdays has a clever trick: it does not care about the number of fans, but tends to choose influencers and KOCs who have maintained a good figure during pregnancy. Through their recommendation, a value-added selling point is implanted into the product: "Perdays can not only control the occurrence of diabetes and make it easy for you to do glucose tolerance, but also assist in weight management during pregnancy."

As a result, the brand has planted an anchor in the hearts of pregnant mothers who are generally anxious about their appearance and body shape - "You don't have to worry about gaining weight when eating our products." After target users who have this anxiety are reached by brand content, it is difficult for them not to convert in time after being attracted.

The huge index shows that among the interest groups in the maternal and infant industry, the TGI (preference) of working women in third- and fourth-tier cities is higher. The characteristics of this group of people are: most of them are in the golden period of work, family and childbearing, with relatively high education, stable income, and economic independence but overall low to medium, so their maternal and infant shopping decisions are rational, but they are willing to pay for the "beautiful promise/vision" conveyed by the brand and know how to please themselves . Therefore, in the past two years, whether it is infant nutrition products or maternal and infant products (including skin care/beauty/nutritional products/clothing, etc.), consumption has been rising rapidly.

Another brand that has also seized the dividends of the niche market is Youerjiajia, a brand that sells teethers and pacifiers.

In extremely segmented categories, Youer Jiajia can still break through by relying on "hot products + strong operations", and its success can be replicated. In 2023, the brand's only hot product was the mushroom teether, and in 2024, the pacifier was added. By strengthening cooperation with distribution influencers, especially small influencers (with 10,000-100,000 fans), sales have jumped.

Data shows that the median cumulative sales of Youerjiajia from January to October 2024 is 147 million, an increase of 240% compared with the full year of 2023 (43.1 million).

Finally, I would like to share my observations on the maternal and infant track. Maternal and infant brands operating Douyin e-commerce in 2025 should not ignore these three suggestions:

1. Achieve refined management across the entire region.

For mature categories in the maternal and infant industry (such as baby diapers, cotton and soft paper products, etc.), the window for growth driven by a single extreme long board (such as operation long board, investment long board, product long board, price long board, etc.) has basically closed. Brands that have performed well in channels such as short videos, brand self-broadcasting, expert distribution, and product cards can enter the top echelon of mature categories.

2. Pay attention to the sales power of mid-level influencers.

Judging from the sales distribution chart, regardless of the sub-category, the sales contribution of influencers shows an "olive-shaped" structure. The sales of the top and tail influencers have declined compared to 2022, the sales power of mid- and lower-level influencers (with 100,000-1 million fans) has increased, and the sales power of small influencers with content capabilities (with 10,000-100,000 fans) has increased. It is recommended that brands focus on cooperating with these two types of influencers.

3. Online is no longer a constraint on offline layout. On the contrary, the brand potential accumulated online will help the development and distribution of offline channels (especially the maternal and infant channels in the sinking market). At the same time, it will also feed back to the offline customer acquisition and store visit rate, and vice versa.

Take Bedemei as an example. It has occupied a strong position in many offline maternal and child stores. In May 2023, Bedemei officially reached a cooperation with Kids King. Bedemei will enter 512 stores of Kids King in 17 provinces, 3 municipalities and more than 180 cities. In addition, data shows that Bedemei also cooperates with 5,000 maternal and child stores. Online hot products are also hot-selling products in maternal and child stores. Many offline channels are in a state of wanting to sell but unable to get the goods.

In addition, children's clothing brands like Balabala have accumulated brand momentum and attention to their hot products online, which has also significantly increased the traffic and visit rate of their offline stores.

From Kasdata Public Account