Why the business of babies is booming in a cost of living crisis

Sunday, 17 August 2025

Attendees at Auckland’s Baby Show, which generated about $3.9 million in sales last year.

The number of children being born in New Zealand may not be soaring but that’s having little impact on the number of businesses setting up shop with the aim to cash in on parents’ unconditional love.

Baby products businesses are booming ‒ both in the number of businesses setting up to service this market and, increasingly, their profits.

Retail sector expert Chris Wilkinson says baby products have always been a cash cow in New Zealand, but this sector of the retail market has largely beefed up over the past six years following the demise of Pumpkin Patch, and thanks to mumpreneurs setting up businesses and selling products that appealed to people like themselves.

More than 58,300 babies were born in New Zealand last year, according to Stats NZ, up slightly on 2023 when almost 57,000 were born. The latest figure is in line with the numbers recorded in 2022 and 2021.

New Zealand’s baby retail sector is made up of major bricks and mortar players, Baby Factory, Nature Baby, a reincarnated BabyCity, and most recently Australian retail giant Baby Bunting, which has three stores in Auckland and one in Christchurch.

Farmers, Kmart and Postie are also strong players in the market, alongside thousands of small independent owner-operators that largely operate online.

Wilkinson said Baby Bunting’s arrival in New Zealand around this time in 2022 had turned up the dial on competition and inspired others.

“There's a lot of mumpreneurs around. These days it's much easier to be able to source products from different parts of the world, and people can sell online, which means they can have that kind of lifestyle business.

Hannah and Steven Jones, founders of Ease Baby, with their sons Myles and Hugh.

“You'll find businesses like The Sleep Store, which is a very successful brand in New Zealand, they started in their garage and have grown significantly. It's a really good example of a mumpreneur business that's scaled up significantly, and off that same story as everyone else; you’ve had a baby and you realise there's a need for these products.”

Mum of two, Hannah Jones, set up her stainless steel dinnerware brand Ease Baby, while on maternity leave after having her second son.

Jones, who runs the business with her husband and some help from her family, says she always wanted to start a business but it was only when she was looking for certain cups for her children and couldn’t find any available that she decided to set up Ease Baby.

She found a supplier online, set up a website and used Canva to create a brand and packaging before launching her business in October last year.

She started with stainless steel cups and has been expanding her product range. Jones, who uses her parents’ house as a storage facility, says growth has been in triple digits in the past three months and she has begun expanding into Australia.

Ease Baby gets between three and five orders per day through the website and has started wholesaling to other e-commerce brands.

“If we keep growing the way we're going, we will need to start investing in some kind of storage facility.”

Jones says the baby products market is lucrative, despite the economy being out of shape. “When it comes to safety and better products, people are willing to spend a bit more and invest in those products for their kids.”

Wilkinson agreed. He said baby products was an area consumers were still happy to spend up large on despite many being financially stretched.

Content creators on Instagram were helping drive significant sales for many smaller or newly established baby brands, he said.

More than 7000 people are expected to attend the Baby Show at Auckland Showgrounds this weekend and spend up large on baby goods.

Everyone knows babies are expensive, and there are thousands of companies across the country clipping the ticket.

The event, which began 30 years ago and exhibits over 150 brands, has become popular for new parents to stock up on big ticket baby items and learn about new brands in one place.

Last year the show generated around $3.9 million in sales, according to Baby Show event manager Selena Edwards, approximately $557 per visitor.

Edwards said organisers had noted an uptick in the number of mumpreneurs showing at the event in recent years. About one quarter of exhibitors this year are what she deems mumpreneurs.

The Baby Show is a big revenue generator for baby brands and retailers.

“People are always going to have babies, even if they're having slightly less, and so they will need the gear,” she said of the huge opportunity in the baby goods market.

“The interesting thing that I love about New Zealand is the amount of people that through their own experience are creating new products for the industry. You'll get a mum that's had a baby and she's not really keen to go back to work, and she thinks, what would I have wanted when I had my baby and then she'll go into that.

“There's new things being done all the time, because people are always having babies.”

Gemma Cale has helped deliver 19 babies by phone. She talks to Paddy Gower about her work with Hato Hone St John.

The challenge for big box retail

Once upon a time people would buy all their baby products from one store, whereas these days multiple businesses are getting a cut of the pie as a result of many more options of places to shop, Wilkinson said.

“New Zealand's always been an innovator in baby products. Going back to the days of Pumpkin Patch, it was a really unique experiential retail environment, and while it didn't succeed years later, through its heyday, it expanded into significant overseas markets, then you've got the likes of Phil&Teds, a very successful baby products manufacturer that sells globally.”

Campbell Gower, owner of Phil&Teds, a Wellington-based pram and high chair manufacturer, says retail is challenged everywhere in the world. Of the 25 markets his brand operates in there isn’t one that doesn’t have some sort of headwind.

In December, Gower, who also owns pram brand Mountain Buggy, acquired retail chain BabyCity out of liquidation.

Since then he had changed the product assortment, partnered with suppliers, shut down some stores and reopened another. That took the store count to four, with three more openings on the cards, and he was now operating the stores with a renewed focus on offering consultation and education about the products to customers.

Along with a general reorganisation of the business, Gower said BabyCity had been building merchandise under private label for every section of its store that catered to every budget.

“There’s value in that because you can bring an affordable offering to people, and you can leverage the trust that was built with that customer.”

BabyCity had grown its sales every single month this year, and there were plans to significantly grow the retail footprint, he said.

Gower said it was easier for small owner-operator baby goods businesses to make a profit in retail, but it was much harder once employees, physical stores and high rents and overheads were involved.

Despite the challenges in retail, Gower said there was also a lot of opportunity for retailers who could offer something different in the baby segment of the market.

“I think there is a really good opportunity, which is why I'm investing in it.

“The baby world is a parallel universe that you're just not in until you're pregnant, and then suddenly you're in it. You've got to get up a pretty steep learning curve … so what we’re trying to do at BabyCity is bring back consultation, so that people feel like there’s a relationship to lean on for those first few years together.”