Survey Shows Price Differences In Baby Products

Tuesday, 19 October 2010 12:56

Written by Noel Cotter

The National Consumer Agency (NCA) today launched a new campaign aimed at helping new parents manage their money and find the best value.

The results of the latest in its rolling series of segment based price surveys, targeting baby care products such as nappies, formula, baby food and baby hygiene products, reveal notable price differences between the main supermarket chains and specifically identify a large number of special offers in this segment.

To complement the results of the survey, the NCA has also launched a "baby budget planner" to help expectant parents budget for the essentials before their baby is born.
Baby Care Products Price Survey

The research is based on branded baby care products surveyed in Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Superquinn and SuperValu, and own brand goods compared across Aldi, Lidl and Tesco.

The largest comparable basket, comprising 105 branded baby care products, was surveyed in Dunnes Stores, Superquinn and Tesco.

In this basket, Dunnes Stores was cheapest, with the 105 common items costing €520.24, while Tesco came in most expensive at €546.66, a difference of 5.1% (€26.42). The price in Superquinn was €523.50.

In this basket, the research found differences of over 50% on some individual products. However, perhaps the most critical finding was that the lion's share (83%) of the overall price difference on the 105 item basket was accounted for by price differences in the Nappy category.

Here, across 25 common Nappy products, there was a difference of 10.9% (€21.94) between the cheapest retailer for the basket, Dunnes Stores, and the dearest, Tesco.

Ann Fitzgerald, Chief Executive of the NCA, said: "Our new campaign is aimed at one of the most under pressure groups of consumers, many of whom have been hit particularly hard by the recession. The latest survey will arm them with information to track better value while the baby budget planner will help them plan for the essentials.

"It is telling in this latest survey that while, overall, a saving of over 5% can be achieved across a wide range of baby care products, the savings in the particular case of that baby staple, nappies, are more significant at almost 11%, and are greater still on individual products. Given the significance of overall expenditure in this category for the parents of babies and infants, we would urge consumers to be proactive in checking prices and to realise the savings available to them."
Other findings

Further findings of this research include:
* Special offers were a notably strong feature of the baby care products category, with 48 special offers identified in the three multiples. Tesco had 32 special offers with eight of those being 'money off' promotions. Dunnes Stores had 14 special offers with two being monetary offers. Superquinn had two special offers all of which were monetary offers.
* There was a high degree of identical pricing in the baby milk product category, with 20 of the 24 products being price matched in the three multiples.
* When the two SuperValu Stores were included in the comparison, a basket of 86 common products was available for analysis, and the total difference between the cheapest and the dearest here was €16.10 or 4%. Dunnes Stores was the cheapest at €405.12 with Tesco the most expensive at €421.22. The cost of the basket in Superquinn was €405.69 and €411.09 in the two Supervalu stores. All the products in this basket were priced identically in both SuperValu stores, even though SuperValu does not exercise a policy of national pricing. This is the first time this has been observed since NCA pricing surveys began.
* As part of this survey, the NCA collected prices on a number of routine 'own brand' baby items. The resulting comparison of six common products (nappies and baby wipes) reveals an identical total price in Aldi and Lidl at €30.20, with Tesco being slightly more expensive at €31.07, a difference of 2.9% (€0.87). Three of the products were price matched across all three stores with all six products price matched between Aldi and Lidl.

Ms Fitzgerald said: "A key finding of the survey is that parents can make significant savings by being price aware and by seeking out special offers on baby care products. However, we would urge parents to scrutinise these special offers carefully and to satisfy themselves they represent genuine savings.

“For example, if a store is offering you two items for €20, double check that the individual item price of €10 is sufficiently cheaper than what you would normally pay for a single unit to make buying the promotional product worthwhile. If not, there is nothing ‘special’ about the offer.

“We would also point out that whilst the availability of these special offers does mean shoppers can find good deals, our research shows that consumers would prefer long term lower prices to having to chase rotating offers from store to store.

"If you are shopping in a store for baby products that are on special offer, stay focused on getting the special offers and try to avoid purchasing other items you may not need or that you know are more competitively priced elsewhere. Otherwise you could be eating into the valuable savings you are making."
Baby Budget Planner

The NCA has also today launched a new baby budget planner to help first-time parents. The NCA will also be publishing a new guide in the coming months to help parents with finances and more from birth of baby and beyond.

Ms Fitzgerald said: "New parents often don't know what they need to budget for and can feel pressurised into buying the best of everything for their new arrival. Our planner will help parents map out their spending so that they set a budget and decide on their priorities from there."
Learn more

Read the full results of the baby care products price comparison survey

Get the baby budget planner on www.itsyourmoney.ie