Disclaimer: The following article is from CASS Data, authored by classmate Li Hao.
Author Introduction
The author of this article, Li Hao, is the founder of CASS Consulting. He is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He is a member of the think tank of Industry Experts at Voluminous Studies, a lecturer for Voluminous Engine & Peking University Guanghua President Class, and a distinguished lecturer at the Startup Black Horse Program.
Recently, at the winter seminar and maternity, infant, and child industry CEO summit, Li Hao gave a thematic sharing entitled “The Douyin Breakthrough Strategy for the Maternity and Infant Industry in 2025.” This article is an excerpt from that content, deconstructing several dark horse brand cases and explaining opportunities for the maternity and baby industry.
Unquestionably, the maternity and baby industry has entered a cycle of stock.
Industry reports demonstrate that the growth rate of China’s maternity and baby market transaction size has slowed, with an increase rate lower than the pre-epidemic period. Consumer decisions lean towards rationality and caution, prioritizing cost-effectiveness. Influenced by the concept of scientific and refined parenting, the entire maternity and baby industry has entered a stage of quality consumption, upgrading, and expansion.
Among various e-commerce platforms, with a daily active user base of 700 million, Douyin remains a significant growth platform for maternity and baby brands. CASS Consulting found that from January to October 2024, the sales volume growth rate for the top 1000 maternity and baby brands on Douyin was 44.5%, virtually on par with the overall growth rate of 46% reported by Douyin e-commerce. Indeed, the concentration of leading brands in Douyin’s e-commerce maternity and baby industry is increasing, but opportunities still exist in niche sectors driven by extreme specialty.
From January to October 2024, the estimated sales volume of the top 100 maternity and baby brands accounted for 70.62% of the sales within the top 1000 brands, with the top 20 brands accounting for 37.62% of the total GMV of the top 1000 brands.
For some sectors, it is no longer suitable for new players to enter, such as baby diapers and cotton/soft paper products, which have become highly saturated, and the sales focus for baby formula still remains offline. Entry into these sectors necessitates careful consideration. However, opportunities within Douyin e-commerce still exist in certain highly specialized segments.
In the products-care sector, baby wash and care have been the “star sectors” in the past two years, with many established brands placing their bets in this area, sparking a new round of inward rotation. Now, as the overall growth of the industry slows, focusing on subcategories and segmented audiences when betting is essential.
In the baby supplies segment, due to the high degree of category segmentation (like protective travel gear, home/bedding, feeding tools, etc.), leadership brands are scarce, creating breakout opportunities through hit product strategies and refined operations.
Furthermore, maternity and infant nutrition products and maternity and postpartum products that are easy to endorse and convert continue to present current opportunities.
ChanMama Cube data indicates that whether it’s market size, brand stock, or product quantity, the maternity and postpartum product segment has an advantage. In 2023, its market scale growth rate far exceeded that of the baby market, resulting in a higher success rate for brands.
In the full-domain growth strategy class at CASS Consulting, I have repeatedly emphasized the three keywords for mastering Douyin: algorithm, content, and influencers. Under the algorithm, it is essential to establish two mindsets: a demographic mindset and a sector mindset.
In fact, breaking down the high-growth maternity and baby brands of 2024, none were found to be lacking in demographic and sector thinking. At the maternity and infant industry CEO summit two days ago, I gave a thematic sharing entitled “The Douyin Breakthrough Strategy for the Maternity and Infant Industry in 2025.” This article is an excerpt from that content, dissecting several dark horse brand cases and explaining opportunities in the maternity and baby sector.
Demographic Thinking: Focus on correct tagging and feedback from targeted demographics
Brands that want to do long-term business on Douyin must have a demographic mindset, especially in competitively saturated sectors. They must identify their target demographic.
Why establish a demographic mindset? Fundamentally, it is determined by Douyin’s traffic distribution mechanism. Both content and products must serve the correctly labeled demographic, stimulate their positive feedback, and contribute to a more accurate push of the flow model, asset sedimentation of quality demographics, and rising business volume.
In the baby care track, Feihu Brand demonstrates a good example of “dislocated competition.”
Those familiar with the maternity and baby industry understand that, in the baby care track, Bei De Mei has done excellent user education, embedding the concept of “age-specific care” into the hearts of sophisticated parents from first- and second-tier cities, also establishing the mindset that “professional wash and care use Bei De Mei.” From January to October 2024, the brand’s cumulative sales volume on Douyin reached 912 million, with the amino acid silicone-free shampoo for babies contributing nearly 35% of the sales volume for the brand.
As a direct competitor with similar product categories and price positioning, how did Feihu Brand avoid direct competition with Bei De Mei?
I observed that their core differentiation from Bei De Mei was based on two strategies.
First, in influencer distribution, Feihu placed fewer restrictions on the type of influencers needed for distribution. Among the high-selling influencers, there were many in fashion dressing and agriculture-oriented influencers, implying that as long as the influencer’s fan profile aligns with the target customer profile, Feihu Brand would extend an invitation to promote their products, thus cleverly avoiding strong competition with Bei De Mei in influencer distribution—compared to non-vertical influencers, Bei De Mei, with its brand image considerations, preferred mother-and-baby and lifestyle influencers to achieve sales goals while also seeding and watering the brand.
Second, unlike Bei De Mei, which targets new first-line and second-line users, Feihu Brand aims for lower-tier market consumers, to rapidly penetrate this audience in brand building and marketing approaches, Feihu Brand also employs forms favored by third- and fourth-tier market users, such as collaborating with active/retired athletes, celebrities, etc., to create a celebrity-endorsed impression.
On November 27th, Feihu Brand officially announced Liu Wanting, the champion of the 72nd Miss World (China), as its brand spokesperson. Subsequently, stickers featuring Liu Wanting appeared across Feihu Brand’s live streaming matrices to reduce the entry barrier for users visiting the live streams.
Why is Feihu Brand’s approach effective on Douyin? Aside from strong brand operational capabilities, it also has much to do with the platform’s user trends.
Data show that in Douyin, the growth rates of maternity and baby users from third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities are 31.06%, 79.27%, and 45.15%, respectively, far higher than in first- and second-tier cities (-67.81% and -10.24%). This indicates that brands offering mid- to low-priced products with high value for money, even white-label brands, have substantial growth potential. Feihu hit upon such an opportunity window and seized its target demographic with perfect timing.
Similarly, Kangaroo Mommy also identified the market opportunity among Douyin’s maternity and baby demographic.
Throughout 2023, Kangaroo Mommy’s hit products were all maternity and postnatal care items (such as skincare, makeup for pregnancy, etc.). In 2024, CASS Consulting found that Kangaroo Mommy’s growth exceeded 200%, with the high growth attributable to the creation of new hit products—teenager wash and care products.
The creation of new hit products was due to Kangaroo Mommy’s deep insights into the core consumer demographics, discovering that a growing proportion of heavy users were second-time mothers. Second-time mothers in pregnancy not only purchase specialized skincare for themselves but are also responsible for buying family care products.
As such, with its well-regarded reputation, Kangaroo Mommy naturally became their primary choice after pushing for adolescent wash and care.
Here we see an inspiration for mature brands: if consumer portraits are consistent, hit products for demographics A4 and A5 can also serve new products for A3 and A4. What the brand needs to do may involve targeted precision marketing, operations, and placement based on those demographics, which also calls for the company’s digital capabilities. Kangaroo Mommy’s data over the past 30 days includes nearly 4,000 live stream traffic creatives and 2,428 product advertisement creatives, with multiple self-operated accounts launched.
Sector Thinking: Focus on the niche tracks not yet occupied by competitors
In an era where the right choice is more important than hard work, choosing the right track is opting for the direction of business growth.
As mentioned earlier, some tracks in the maternity and baby industry are already saturated, and it’s no longer advisable for new brands to enter. However, there are still plenty of opportunities in certain tracks, and some brands have found a way
to survive by serving segmented needs and choosing the right subsector.
An excellent example of such success is Perdays. Since entering Douyin in 2023, Perdays has maintained a good growth momentum, with sales soaring thanks to a constantly enriched channel layout, ranging from joint broadcasts to product cards, from merchant self-broadcasts to brand self-broadcasts, methodically completing its full-domain layout on Douyin.
In my opinion, Perdays did three things right:
First, it chose a good track: it entered a “blue ocean” subsector within a sector full of opportunities.
In the maternity and postnatal nutrition track, relative “red oceans” are calcium, iron, zinc, and DHA, whereas probiotics for maternity and postnatal care are relatively untapped subsectors. Perdays’ main product is a probiotic with sugar control effects for pregnant women, targeting a blue ocean subsector within the maternity and postnatal nutrition category.
In addition, probiotics are “content-friendly” products, capable of clearly conveying product value and selling points through content and accelerating customers’ conversion to orders, even leveraging natural flow distribution. Data show that Perday’s paid traffic accounts for about 40%, lower than the average paid traffic percentage in the maternity and postnatal nutrition product track (70%).
Second, they made effective use of influencers: the seeding and selling power of SKA influencers (Specific Knowledge Area) is tremendous.
Although Perdays has done well in full-domain layout, I believe that making good use of influencers, especially SKA influencers (such as @小鱼孕期运动, @刘南希, etc.), is a key factor for overseas brands with relatively less brand strength to succeed. SKA influencers are defined as those with moderate fan numbers and average selling capabilities, but their main advantage is high brand loyalty, willingness to generate long-term sales for the brand, frequent return cooperation opportunities, and high brand controllability.
By deeply binding with vertical influencers, such as those in prenatal exercise, mother and baby evaluations, nutritionists during pregnancy, etc., Perdays has managed to achieve both seeding and selling targets. For content from influencers and KOCs that performs well, the brand amplifies value through remixes and Qianchuan placements, while also calling on multiple influencers/KOCs to utilize productive materials.
Third, they nailed the product card selling point: selling not just a product but a dream.
When choosing influencer KOC collaborations, Perdays cleverly doesn’t care about fan numbers but tends to select influencers/KOCs who have maintained their physique during pregnancy. Through their endorsement, an added selling point is embedded in the product—”Perdays not only helps control gestational diabetes, allowing easy glucose tolerance management but also aids in weight management during pregnancy.”
Hence, the brand sows a mental anchor in the hearts of expectant mothers concerned about beauty and figure during pregnancy—”You don’t have to worry about gaining weight with our products.” It’s hard for the target audience, who harbor such anxieties and have been reached by branded content, not to convert promptly after being influenced.
Voluminous calculations show that in the interest group portrait of the maternity and baby industry, third and fourth-tier working women have a higher TGI (preference degree). This group is characterized by being in their prime for career, family, and childbearing, with relatively high education levels, stable income, financial independence but overall mid to low economic status, which means their maternity and baby shopping decisions are rational, but they are willing to pay for the “beautiful promises/visions” communicated by the brand and know how to please themselves. Therefore, in the last two years, consumption of both infant and child nutrition products and maternity and postnatal products (including skincare, cosmetics, nutrition, clothing, etc.) has been climbing rapidly.
Brands that have also tapped into the benefits of niche tracks include those selling teething products and pacifiers—Jiaer Youyou.
Even within extremely subdivided categories, “hit products + strong operations” can still facilitate a breakthrough, and the success of Jiaer Youyou is replicable. In 2023, the brand’s hit product was only the small mushroom teether. In 2024, it expanded its product line to include soothers and enhanced collaboration with distribution influencers, particularly small influencers (fan base of 10,000-100,000), achieving a quantum leap in sales.
Data show that from January to October 2024, Jiaer Youyou’s accumulated median sales volume reached 147 million, a 240% increase over the entire year of 2023 (43.1 million).
In conclusion, I would like to share my observation on the maternity and baby track and three recommendations for maternity and baby brands operating e-commerce on Douyin in 2025:
- Achieve refined operations across the whole domain.
For mature categories in the maternity and baby industry (such as baby diapers, cotton soft paper products, etc.), the window for growth pulled by a single extreme advantage (such as operational, placement, product, price advantage, etc.) is nearly closed. Brands with admirable performance across channels such as short videos, brand self-broadcasts, influencer distribution, and product cards can make it to the top tier of mature categories.
- Place importance on the selling power of small and mid-tier influencers.
Looking at the distribution of sales volume, regardless of the subcategory, the contribution of influencer-driven sales volume presents an “olive-shaped” structure. Sales brought in by top and bottom tier influencers have declined compared to 2022, while the selling power of mid-tier influencers (fan base of 100,000 to 1 million) and capable small influencers (fan base of 10,000 to 100,000) have risen. Brands are advised to focus on collaborating with these two categories of influencers.
- Online is no longer a constraint on offline layout; on the contrary, the brand momentum accumulated online aids the expansion and distribution of offline channels (especially the down-market maternity and baby channels). Simultaneously, it also feeds back to the increase in offline customer acquisition and in-store rates, and vice versa.
Keywords:
1. Food and snack influencer collaborations
