The panel of the round table discussion had representatives from Medela India, The Moms Co., Kay Kay clothing LLP, Olympia Industries, Hapup, P&G India, Livia Polymer bottles and Mommy Influencer/Bloggers. The overarching theme of the discussion was the paradigm shift in the way parents make purchasing decisions and the surge in the number of homegrown brands in the baby care sector.
September 05, 2019
Mommy & Baby Fair 2019 witnessed a round table discussion curated by BabyChakra on the first day of the exhibition, i.e. on 26 July, 19. The discussion was premised on the objective to bring into light the various trends in the maternity, kids and baby care sector and to chart out a significant evolution in the way Indian millennial parents make purchasing decisions for their babies and themselves. Mommy & Baby Fair brought to the fore this unique opportunity and a platform to gather at a space to share insights on the present-day maternity and baby care market and the evolution of the Indian parents in terms of choosing brands/products for their babies and themselves.
The industry experts who spoke at the session were: Mohit Sadaani, Co-Founder at The Moms Co.; Anurag Pansari, Director at Olympia Industries Limited; Rajat Kapoor, Director at Kay Kay Clothing LLP for Seraphine India; Santanu Singh, General Manager of Medela India; Prisha Lalwani, Mommy Influencer; Sanjana Ramanan, Executive Director at Livia Polymer bottles and Shruti Ajmera Reddy, Founder of Hapup. Each of them spoke at length sharing their domain knowledge and about how the whole industry is witnessing prominent growth and upward trends.
With a rise in disposable income and a variety of other factors such as a growing awareness that has spawned across the globe on the importance of high-quality baby care products, there has been a paradigmatic shift in the way Indian parents choose the brands and their respective products. Also, there is now a wide array of brands and products to choose from, thus, if someone wishes to have a particular kind of product, it is readily available. Furthermore, the panel speakers touched upon the conspicuous evolution that can be noted in the way parents are all the more conscious, tech-savvy, and have an inherent wish to explore and analyze all the choices available to them.
The speakers at the session with one accord asserted that there is now a surge in the number of homegrown/Indian brands in the baby care sector which shows the evident growth in the Indian market. The theme of the discussion was how millennial mothers are making well-informed decisions on parenting and are more than careful in buying products for their toddlers and kids, owing to a plethora of options to choose from. The other big shift is that the parents today are more informed, relying on the internet to gain awareness on the best products and services for their little ones.
Anurag Pansari touched upon that how India is better represented in terms of manufacturing opportunities as well as the fact that International corporations and entities are now more than willing to invest in Indian brands. According to the viewpoint presented by Mohit Sadaani, while earlier majority of Indian parents had limited options when it came to baby care and maternity-related products and they had to majorly choose from the international and imported brands. However, with a great many emerging Indian brands in the sector nowadays, the trust on the Indian brands have certainly strengthened. Rajat Kapoor from Kay Kay Clothing LLP spoke on their tie-up with the leading maternity brand Seraphine and the changing perspective of maternity fashion in India. And Santanu Singh weighed upon the fact that there has been a certain rise in the percentage of working women and with that, the awareness around certain feeding and nursing products such as breast pumps has increased especially in the urban areas.
Prisha Lalwani who is a mommy blogger and influencer by profession delved upon her personal story to paint a word picture of how millennial mothers take decisions around parenting and how a lot has changed in terms of a rise in solutions and products for pregnant women. Shruti Ajmera Reddy concurred on that point of view and emphasised that the starting points of her baby food brand was that she wished to bring natural and organic products only for Indian parents. One of the speakers, Sanjana Ramanan presented some interesting facts and statistics on how cautiously the millennial Indian moms make purchasing decisions today owing to an immense number of options and an access to internet and other resources of information.
The key purpose of the round table session organized by the team of Mommy & Baby Fair was to create a credible space to exchange knowledge and information and to extend the awareness in the sector.
