Attend a wedding expo, and you’ll likely walk away astounded at the sheer volume of highly specific crap people seem to think brides need. It seems like peak unnecessary hard sell—that is, until you start shopping for babies.
Racked did a deep dive on the baby product industry, a wild world that is huge and growing rapidly. Sales were $23 billion in the U.S. in 2013, and many companies are posting record numbers. If you’ve recently stopped by a Babies R Us to birthday shop for tiny new relatives, this might sound familiar:
“This stuff just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” says Dana Wood, an analyst with the Robin Report. “A decade ago, there was one baby carrier. Now, there are dozens of them. Whenever someone in the market has something new, you can be sure there will be 10 more coming down the pipeline.”
Many of the advances these days are iterative, like creating more luxurious versions of staples or tailoring a stroller that much more closely to a particular environment. Which makes sense—a parent who’ll have to scale subway steps may very well have different priorities from one who lives somewhere car-centric. Also, I’m told those bandana bibs are great if you’ve got a drooler.
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