Counterfeit baby products - MARKET RESEARCH - Parents' buying behaviour, exposure to fakes and opinions - Red Points
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
MARKET RESEARCH
Counterfeit
baby products
Parents’ buying behaviour, exposure to fakes and opinions
See our tech live
See our tech liveKey findings
50% 30% 16%
50% of baby 30% of consumers 16% of counterfeits
product costumers have bought were sourced
would buy a fake fake baby product from social media
item if it had a big at some point
enough discount
42% 40% 13%
42% of costumers 40% of our sample 13% of counterfeits
who bought a who had bought were sourced
fake online were a fake item online from Wish.com
looking for the real did thinking it
product was the genuine
product
RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 2Introduction Babycare is big business, with the global market estimated to be worth To better understand how to fight this issue, it is important to understand in excess of $73 billion in 2018, and is predicted to grow to $81 billion the experiences, habits and opinions of baby product consumers. This by 2020. With new markets opening up in Asia and Latin America, information will allow brands to build comprehensive countermeasures the potential for growth in the industry is enormous. This is particularly that keep brands and customers safe. true for China, where growing safety concerns and mistrust over domestic brands has led to an increased demand for western baby food products. However, outside of foods and lotions, traditional product brands such as Fisher-Price have seen increased competition. Fisher-Price saw an 11% drop in gross sales between 2016 and 2017. The problems for baby product producers don’t stop there, counterfeiters looking to capitalise on innovative designs or prestigious brands are rife on online marketplaces. Innovative baby products have suffered particularly badly at the hands of counterfeits, such as the Happy Mat, which have been the victims of intellectual property abuse after featuring on Kickstarter. Many brands have responded to this with pages on their website such as Ergo, Baby Gear and others. However, many customers remain in the dark. Fake baby products can seriously damage children’s health. If the materials used are not up to safety standards they can irritate the skin of infants, or if they breakdown during washing they can become a substantial chemical and choking hazard. In some extreme cases, fake baby and children’s products have been found to contain potentially carcinogenic phthalates. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 3
About the survey
Method
Our survey used an online survey platform that could provide us
with the reach and audience we wanted. None of the participants
had taken part in any previous Red Points surveys, so not to affect
potential results.
Question style
In many of the questions asked, our participants were able to select SURVEY SIZE COUNTRY
345 PEOPLE U.S.A.
more than one answer. This allows us to have a more complete
picture of their opinions and actions.
About the sample
To better understand the behaviour of babycare customers who
shop online, we selected the industry’s demographic. Based on
industry research, we selected U.S. customers, aged between 18-65,
all with chidren under five years old.
LANGUAGE GENDER
Error Margin ENGLISH ANY
Given there are 23.3 million children aged between 1-5 years old and
the average family size in the U.S.A. is 2.4 children we calcualte the
total market size is 9.7 million. On this basis our error margin is 5-6%. +
18
AGE RANGE PARENTAL STATUS
18-65 YEARS OLD CHILDREN 0-5 YEARS OLD
RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 4Qualifying Question When was the alst time you bought a baby product online? This qualifying question ensures that responses we recieve are from our current target market. Any respondent who had not bought a baby product online in the last year was rejected from the sruvey. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 5
SECTION 1
Buying
behaviour
Shopping habits, social media,
and trust evaluation
See our tech liveQuestion 1 Buying behaviour
Can you please list We can see a wide variety of heratige brands like silvercross, to more innovative items like Beaba. The
most popluar brand was Fisher-price, this is perahps unsurprising given the volume of product that they
which baby and infant produce.
brands you buy or have
bought online?
25+ 25 - 20 20 - 15 15 - 10 10 - 5Question 2 Buying behaviour When looking for baby products, what factors do you consider to be the most important? (1 being the most important, 7 being the least) This question helps us establish what exactly our sample are looking for in a baby product and brand. We can see, unsurprisingly, that safety standards are the most important factor, with style at the bottom of the list. Affordability comes in third place, showing it as a motivating factor, but not the main decision driver. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 8
Question 3 Buying behaviour When searching for baby products online, what are the primary search methods you use? Here we can see that Amazon is overwhelmingly the go-to source for most parents when shopping for baby products. Google is also the first search method for many customers, which can give some risky results. Interestingly, 23% of customers started their search on Facebook, more than eBay, suggesting that parents seek social recommendations prior to cold search. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 9
Question 4 Buying behaviour Would you consider buying baby product online via a social media post or advert? Supporting the findings in the previous question, question 5 highlights shows that over 74% of our participants have bought, or would consider buying, a baby product via social media. Only a small number of those who had previously made a purchase this way stated that they would not do this again, suggesting a negative experience. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 10
SECTION 2
Product evaluation
Confidence levels and evaluation
techniques
See our tech liveQuestion 5 Product evaluation How do you evaluate the trustworthiness of a product/seller? (On either social media or traditional platforms i.e. Amazon) The two most popular forms of evaluating a seller are clearly customer reviews and/or star ratings. While this can be helpful, it is also not a very reliable method as reviews can easily be bought or manipulated. Using the quality of the photos as measure of authenticity is not a reliable method either, as many counterfeits use photos taken by the authentic brand. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 12
Question 6 Product evaluation How confident are you in your ability to identify a fake baby product listing online? Here we can see that the majority of respondents feel confident about their ability to identify fake items online; 54% stated they were confident. On the other hand, only 9% of respondents said that they were not confident to some extent about this. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 13
Product Images Product evaluation The participants were then shown a series of images with accompanying text: “These are the photos used by current listings, some selling counterfeits and some the real product. “ RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 14
Question 7 Product evaluation Considering these images, how confident are you now in your ability to identify a baby product listing? We can see a clear drop in confidence levels, confident responses drop to 46% after viewing the images of the fake products and non-confident have doubled. This would indicate that there is a section of our sample who believe they are better at spotting counterfeits than they are. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 15
SECTION 3
Experience
of Counterfeits
Experience of and reactions to
counterfeits online
See our tech liveQuestion 8 Experience Have you ever purchased a fake baby or infant product online? While the vast majority of our participants had never purchased a fake baby product, just over 30% had some experience of purchasing one. From those 97 participants who had purchased a fake item, 40% did so totally unknowingly. Only 28% of those who had purchased a fake did so on purpose. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 17
Question 9 Experience Where did you buy the item from? Only those participants who had bought a fake were asked to complete this question. From those, we can see that Amazon is the stand-out source of fake baby items with 43% of fake baby items purchased on the site. eBay was a distant second with 14%, however it was shortly followed by Wish.com at 13%, highlighting the changing nature of the ecommerce landscape, as Wish.com is a relative newcomer to the U.S. ecommerce sector. Social media also proved important with 16% coming from Facebook and Instagram. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 18
Question 10 Experience What was your experience of the fake baby product? Despite the fact that only 28% of our participants bought a fake knowingly, over 70% were satisfied with the product they received. This disparity would suggest that there are shoppers who accidently buy a fake item but are actually reasonably pleased with it. Only 5% of respondents stated they were very disappointed with the item, suggesting that the product met their requirements, despite its probable lower production quality. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 19
Question 11 Experience What was your search intent that led to you buy the fake item? Importantly, this question establishes whether those who bought fake items were searching for the real product, regardless of whether they were aware the item was a fake at the point of purchase or not. We can see that the vast majority were not searching for a counterfeit. In fact, only 9% explicitly started their search with the intent of finding a fake. The rest, including other responses, happened upon the fake by chance and were presumably motivated by the lower price to make the purchase. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 20
SECTION 4
Opinions
and reactions
Attitudes towards counterfeits and
effects on brands
See our tech liveQuestion 12 Opinions and reactions How much would you be willing to pay for a fake baby product of your desired brand? Almost 50% of our sample would be willing to buy a counterfeit baby product if the price was sufficiently discounted. Interestingly, the spread across the discount options was relatively even, provoking the idea that for many there is such a thing as too much discount and that for counterfeiters there is a peak discount point that will capture most people. It would appear that price is a big motivator for baby product customers, despite the results of question 3, with some customers only looking for a 25% discount for the RRP. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 22
Question 13 Opinions and reactions How concerned are you, if at all, about the problem of fake baby products in the market? 57% of our baby product customers are concerned about the issue of counterfeits. This would correspond to the customer who would not buy a fake baby product, regardless of the price. A large proportion of respondents believe that this issue is too small to affect most people, and are indifferent to the issue. That said, only a small amount, 13%, were not concerned at all, showing that most people recognise it is a cause for some concern. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 23
Question 14 Opinions and reactions Who do you think should be primarily responsible for taking fake items off online channels? As the big ecommerce platforms tend to be the largest source of counterfeits, it follows that customers hold them responsible; 57% of our respondents feel that it is the job of Amazon, eBay and others to protect them while shopping. The second most popular choice was the brands themselves, with 19% selecting this option. This suggests that customers feel they have the right to be protected while shopping as only 8% felt it was the job if the individual user to spot and report fakes. RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 24
Comments and other responses From the comments and input of the ‘other’ options, our sample has provided some interesting insights. User #97 - In response to Q10 User #201 - In response to Q12 “I got a Puj Tub off the internet for a friend. “I looking for a kids toy and then i saw an ad on A few days after giving her it she told me she thought facebook for it and it took me to a shopping website.” it was a fake because she had got another one and the one I gave her felt cheap and didn’t work so good - I was super embarrassed.” User #106 - In response to Q4 User #11 - In response to Q6 “ Wish.com has low prices but I guess some of the stuff “Fakespot.com helps me work out of the deal is too I buy might not be real.” good to be true” User #81 - In response to Q12 “I just came across the item on the FB marketplace when I was looking for a something else.” RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 25
Findings and implications
Does price beat safety? Does price beat safety?
In question three, customers were asked to rate what aspects of Most of our respondents did not buy their counterfeits on purpose.
baby products they valued the most. Safety was the most important, 30% of our respondents had bought a fake at some point which, if
followed by production quality and then affordability. Given that price representative of reality, is very high. Given that this survey has an
was only the third most important, it is strange that customers bought error margin of 7% it is possible that the true number is lower. However,
fakes knowingly or were open to the idea of purchasing one if the this is still a significant number of customers who have had a direct
discount was enough. experience of counterfeit baby products.
From those who had purchased fakes, only a small number of baby product
It is fair to assume that counterfeits are made at a lower quality that
consumers did so knowingly (28%). The remaining 71% of customers who
the real items, and it is almost certain that these illegal products have
had purchased counterfeits did so with some doubt or simply in error.
not undergone any safety tests that official bodies usually conduct,
especially for those items made for babies. Despite this, 50% of our From question 12, we can see that only 9% of our respondents who had
respondents reported they would be willing to purchase a fake if the purchased counterfeits did so with the search intent of finding one.
item was sufficiently discounted. This mean that there are individuals who happened upon a counterfeit,
recognised it was not genuine, but continued with the purchase
Implications for baby product brands regardless. The rest of the data from question 12 would indicate that
Consumers’ willingness to trust these products could suggest that there counterfeit purchases are more a result of customer finding fake items
is a lack of awareness around the dangers associated with counterfeit by chance than anything else.
items. Despite ranking price as the third most important factor, behind
safety in first place, in appears that consumers are, in practise, willing Implications for baby product brands
to drop safety as the main priority if the bargain being offered is good The risk of encountering counterfeits is high, but ultimately consumers
enough. Although this disregard for safety could be due to a lack of are not actively looking for them. This means that brands stand a good
awareness about the dangers of counterfeits. Brands could limit this chance of overting this by monitoring Google results (see question 4)
effect by launching educational campaigns and content, informing for keywords associated with their products, such as “cheap Tommee
their user base about the lower quality and poor safety standards Tippee cups”. By removing the most obvious counterfeit offers from
associated with fake products. Google and monitoring Amazon, it is likely that the number of counterfeit
purchases would decrease, as the research doesn’t suggest that
consumers are dedicated to finding fakes.
RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 26Findings and implications
Consumers are not good at spotting fakes Baby product customers have some risky shopping habits
The questions from section 2, give us a clear insight into the ability of While google is the primary search point for most internet users, when
baby product consumers to spot fake products online. It’s clear that for looking for products and using certain keywords, like cheap or discount,
many, they firmly believe they are better than they are at identifying it can lead users to sites selling counterfeits. This is an issue for most
counterfeits. brands and doesn’t appear to affect baby products worse than any
other sector.
The images of both fake and real products, clearly affected our
respondents confidence levels. Confident responses after seeing the Amazon should be a safe search method, but as we can see from the
images accounted for 46% of responses, and non-confident options results of question 10, the highest amount of counterfeits were sourced
accounted for 17%. There is a clear downward trend in confidence from there. However, baby product customers did report using social
levels for at least 15% of respondents, based on the changes from media as a search method, with 31% selecting Facebook or Instagram.
question 7 to 8. Many counterfeiters advertise their fake products on social media
networks, so buying from these channels can be risky if the customer
Question 6 on the other hand showed that consumers use very limited is not 100% sure, and as we have seen baby product customers have
methods to evaluate the authenticity of a listing. For example, the most limited and overestimated ability to spot fakes. This risky behaviour is
popular evaluation method was to use reviews and star ratings, followed reinforced in question 5, where 74% of our sample stated they would
by images. While in most cases this is sufficient, many counterfeiters buy, or already have bought, items via a social media post. In addition,
manipulate reviews and use high-quality photos. Evaluating product when accounting for “other” options also, we can see that 10% of
price, domain and stock are often the most reliable methods of product customer use forums and message boards, these tend to be rife with
evaluation. counterfeiters posting links to their “discount products”.
Implications for brands Implications for brands
The evidence suggests a significant number of baby product customers Policing Amazon and Google would be a safe option, as previously
are not adept at identifying fake items online. Brands could easily discussed. With regards to social media, it would be important for baby
mitigate this risk by offering informative pages on their websites on product brands to ensure they own their social media channels, have
how to identify a fake item and sharing these pages through their active accounts and monitor for ads or post that sell fake items. A strong
social media. Although, spotting a fake item on Amazon would be a presence on popular forums would also help avoid counterfeiters
trickier process due to the catalogue system used so brand protection infiltrating them and selling their wares.
monitoring would be a more suitable option.
RED POINTS See our tech live Fake Baby-Products | 27Thanks for reading
Find out more at
www.redpoints.com
Get in touch at
marketing@redpoints.com
See our tech liveYou can also read
