“Take care of your body – it is the only place you live.”
That quote by entrepreneur Jim Rohn is usually applied to how people eat and what they choose to eat. It highlights the personal relationship with food products but this relationship goes beyond just food.
People want to make sure the products they use for their babies or that they use to take care of themselves also have a personal connection. The quality of the products they choose is of the upmost importance and the trust they place on those items.
When you look at private label sales of many non-food items that fit this description, you can see the consumers’ high level of trust and growing faith they have in the quality of store brands.
Baby products are a good example of this trust. Parents do not blindly throw products for their infants into carts without a second look so the gains by store brands reflect the high options of store brand quality.
Looking at the Unify+ statistics over the past 52-weeks, from June 2022-June 18, 2023, diapers grew in dollar sales by 6.5%, reaching $975 million in private label sales. Disposable diapers highlighted the category, reaching $646 million in sale and growing at 10.4%. Baby wipes grew over 10% in dollar sales and reached total sales of $626 million while baby oils and petroleum jelly sales grew 6.8% and 7.9%, respectively.
When consumers feel under the weather they will not settle for low quality products either. Upper respiratory aids, a 3-billon private label category, grew by 5.5% in dollar sales. Cough/cold/flu/sinus products grew 9.9% in dollar sales and 2.1% in unit sales over the past year, achieving $1.6bn
Internal analgesic products rose 2.8% in dollar sales and children’s internal analgesics sales grew over 20% in dollar and 8.8% in unit sales. Chest rubs grew by 17% in dollar sales and 2.5% in unit sales.
One more category that might catch the eye is dental hygiene. Toothpaste, a strong national brand category, rose 11.6% in private label dollar sales over the past year, followed by dental floss which grew 13.7%.
This growing consumer demand for personal health and baby products could be an excellent reflection of the continued consumer confidence in the quality of store brands.
Important statistics like these are available for members at plma.com in the Unify+ section. Members can view dollar and unit sales for 317 categories and 967 categories for both store brands, national brands and all brands combined.
Tom’s Data Dive is a monthly column written by Editor-in-Chief Tom Prendergast, taking a deeper look at statistics and trends in the industry. This story was featured in PLMA’s e-Scanner July 15, 2023, e-Scanner newsletter.