CAGR of 77.5%: How Can Brands Break Through in the Price-War Cotton Soft Towel Market

In recent years, new mother-and-baby sub-categories have continuously been sought after by consumers; it is difficult for traditional categories to innovate sensorially, whereas brands are more likely to overtake on the curve in emerging sub-tracks where new technologies, new materials and new concepts are still to be developed. Among them, cotton soft towels, as a sub-category with potential, are favoured by many enterprises. According to Leading Industry Research Institute data, China's demand for cotton soft towels grew from 2.35 billion pieces in 2015 to 23.35 billion pieces in 2019, with an average annual compound growth rate of 77.5%—an astonishing rate of growth.

According to the "2021 Cotton Soft Towel Category Insight" released by AliResearch (hereinafter the "report"), emerging white-collar workers and refined mothers are the consumer groups with a high share of cotton soft towel consumption in mother-and-baby scenarios, and in terms of growth rate the consumption potential of Generation Z deserves attention. Consumers are key to the implementation of brand strategy; being user-centred and continuously improving on the product side of cotton soft towels has become a necessary condition for brands to gain stable growth space.

Practical and functional products are favoured

As a childcare tool for refined mothers, tissues, wet wipes and cotton soft towels are often used together with diapers. Among them, wet wipes, which are cleaner, already have a certain market scale, but there are certain usage scenario limitations—for example, they are not suitable for wiping a baby's body when the temperature is too low—whereas cotton soft towels that can be used dry or wet are increasingly popular with mother-and-baby consumers. Many cotton soft towel brands also explore along this line: in the R&D process they not only consider the baby's feelings, but also take into account the mother's user experience in the design of materials, packaging and functions, so products tending towards practicality and functionality are favoured by consumers.

In terms of practicality, the pull-out packaging design that makes it easy for mothers to look after babies has an overwhelming market advantage. The report shows that pull-out cotton soft towels contribute about 70% of overall market consumption, followed by roll-type. Convenient, practical pull-out cotton soft towels can effectively reduce mothers' rush and fluster, saving worry and effort. In addition, the material concepts of larger and thicker and dry-wet dual use, whose popularity keeps rising, also provide convenience for refined childcare mothers.

In terms of functionality, functional formulas such as moisturizing ingredients for babies' sensitive skin and antibacterial ingredients that effectively relieve acne-prone skin have been applied to cotton soft towel products, and consumption of functional products has also kept climbing over the past two years.

It is worth mentioning that "second use," which combines practicality and functionality, has become a common usage strategy for consumers of cotton soft towels. Core consumer groups for cotton soft towels such as emerging white-collar workers, refined mothers and Generation Z account for a high share of the "second use" strategy group, while uses such as kitchen cleanup, household cleaning, baby bottle washing and shoe and bag wiping together constitute the second-use scenarios for cotton soft towels.

From this perspective, the practicality and functionality trend of cotton soft towels is not only the preference of refined mothers but also the demand of core consumer groups such as emerging white-collar workers and Generation Z.

Fierce competition at low price tiers—how should brands plan for the future

In terms of the brand landscape of the cotton soft towel market, competition is already fairly fierce. There are currently more than 500 cotton soft towel brands on the market; relatively well-known brands include Purcotton, Babycare, Anmous, HUGGIES, Goodbaby, Zichu, October Crystals and so on, among which Purcotton, Babycare and Anmous are in a relatively leading position.

Because relatively few enterprises in the industry have sustained R&D capabilities, many choose contract manufacturers, products are homogenized, and to compete for customers the generalization of low prices is fairly obvious. According to report statistics, among online orders for cotton soft towels in mother-and-baby scenarios in 2020, products priced 5-10 yuan were the best-selling; as merchants carried out promotions to attract new customers, products priced below 5 yuan also showed a high growth trend.

As leading cotton soft towel brands, Purcotton and Babycare have unit prices far above the low-tier level; taking Tmall as an example, even during large volume sales promotions the price per box of these two brands' cotton soft towels remained between 10 and 15 yuan. Continuous product innovation and differentiation give revenue confidence: according to the financial report of Winner Medical, the parent company of Purcotton, in the first half of 2021 the company's cotton soft towel revenue was about 409 million yuan, far higher than wet wipes (about 90.1984 million yuan), sanitary napkins (about 265 million yuan) and other non-woven consumer goods.

A price war will eventually become unsustainable; for other brands, how to continue to invest in product innovation and R&D and lay out the high-end cotton soft towel market in the future is the real breakthrough point they need to consider.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-378296.html