So why do parents buy what they buy?

Gideon Wilkins is a qualified member of the Market Research Society. He is Managing Director of Wilkinet Ltd, manufacturer of the Wilkinet baby carrier, baby carrier rain cover and the Wilkinet clothing range.

The Wilkinet Survey – The voice of the consumer
Published: 01 July, 2007 in Nursery Industry Magazine: http://www.nursery-industry.co.uk/news/search.php?_FB%5Bq%5D=wilkinet

What goes through a person's mind when they are planning a purchase? What is it that prompts them to choose one model or brand over another? Of all the questions I've been asked since setting up the Wilkinet Survey, this is the one that comes up most often.

Knowing what motivates and influences your customer's buying decision can give you a head start that could mean the difference between making the sale and seeing them walk away to the next shop.

Each nursery category will also have different priorities so this section will mostly focus on the two main 'hard goods' - pushchairs (PC) and car seats (CS).

Looking through the insight we have, it's possible to split the motivations for purchase into two separate groups - Concerns and Extras.

Concerns
Whenever I meet parents face-to-face (whether speaking to them at parenting groups or when we exhibit our baby carrier at the consumer shows) there is one question that almost always comes up… 'How safe is this for my baby.' This is particularly, and understandably, prevalent in first time parents. In our surveys, 'Safety features' is the run away top priority (77% of people say it's the most important feature on pushchairs and 84% say so for car seats).
Once the parent has established their child's well being they start to think about their own experience of using the product. Will it be easy for them to use, store, fit into a car? With baby carriers we also often find people particularly interested in how comfortable it will be for them to use.

Extras
Having allayed any fears or concerns your customer might have, you then have the opportunity to identify the extras that usually come down to personal preference.
Some of the features that are considered most important are, suiting a wide age range (PC: 41%/CS: 25%) appearance & design (PC: 19%/CS: 8%), innovations & gadgets (PC: 9%/CS: 7%) and, of course, price (PC: 26%/CS: 16%).

Certain 'Extras' sometimes become prerequisites. Before you can even talk about safety/convenience you may have to answer questions on whether you stock brand x or colour y.

We discovered the information in this article by asking (lots of) parents questions… when you've got just one of them in front of you the best policy is to take the same approach - keep asking questions to establish the concerns to resolve and the extras to offer.

Gideon Wilkins