Just 50% of parents are confident they’ve never bought counterfeit goods.
The retail landscape is changing rapidly, not least among new and expecting parents. Latest Parents Insights research from The Insights People shows they are becoming increasingly price-conscious and placing less emphasis on quality, which creates a challenge for brands, as not only are they having to fight harder for customers’ attention in a value-focused landscape, but also having to confront the growing threat of fake products.
All 11 of the product categories we analyse, including clothes, devices and toiletries, saw parents place less emphasis on quality, with an average fall of 16% in February- April 2019 compared to the previous three months.
In contrast, the importance of price rose across nine of the 11 categories, with only groceries and financial services bucking the trend.
This period, for the first time, Parents Insights also asked new and expecting parents about counterfeit products. We found that only 50% were confident that they had never bought fake goods for their child, and that almost a quarter (23%) had inadvertently bought items like toys that were not genuine and 27% could not say for sure.
Mums were 38% more likely than dads to be unsure about whether they have purchased fake items.
The data also revealed most parents are not seriously concerned about the threat fakes pose. When asked how worried they are about fake products, only 7% expressed the maximum level of concern, while 13% were least concerned and the majority (22%) somewhere in between.
Parents Insights is a market intelligence resource on all things expecting and new parents in the UK. Each week, 200 different parents (expecting to age four) are surveyed, adding up to more than 10,000 every year – which enables brands and agencies to provide significant insight on what is influencing the attitudes, behaviour and consumption of this generation of parents.
For a complementary Parents Insights report and to gain access to the Parents Insights portal visit www.parentsinsights.co.uk/progressivepreschool or call +44 (0) 330 159 6631.