Baby Shower Shopping Power
The April/May Earnshaw’s issue had an article about evolving consumer tastes and habits and how they are influencing retailer. The piece that stood out to me, though, was a sidebar about baby showers.
Caletha Crawford, the author of the article and editor in chief of the magazine, cited some interesting statistics about baby showers and baby gifts from a recent survey conducted by TheBump.com:
- 82 percent of new moms and moms-to-be had baby showers or expected to have one – some of the respondents had more than one shower.
- 93 percent of mom respondents said they registered for essentials like diapers and formula, but only 60 percent actually received these types of items as gifts.
- 89 percent of infant clothing that the mom respondents own were given as gifts.
Here’s what I took these stats to mean:
- New moms rely on baby showers to stock up on essential, as well as non-essential items for their new babies.
- Gift-givers prefer to give cute, fun gifts than to buy essentials.
- Cute gifts often mean clothing.
Most people buy the baby gift they want to give – either because it means something to them, they think it will be useful to the recipient, or they just thought the gift was adorable and wanted to share the joy they had when they first encountered it.
Clothing, at least to me, often falls into these categories. I know that new moms will need diapers and such, but try as I might, I just can’t seem to work off a registry. I assume, from the survey, that most people are like me and can’t resist those tiny, cute outfits.
If you’re had a baby shower recently, I’d be curious to know what percentage of the gifts you received were clothing gifts?
If you have recently bought a baby gift, was it clothing? And if so, why did you choose it over some other type of gift?
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