The warm weather is upon us, and the X-hour of spring cleaning is upon us. Between dustings, we’ve been wondering: how much is the online home care market worth?
Take a break from big cleaning and find out all the numbers on the Home Care market.
How much is the market for home care products worth?
According to Businesscoot research, the Italian market for household cleaners and cleaning products has certainly not been one of the most prosperous for several years. In fact, from 2011 to 2017, the market experienced a steady decline with a cumulative decline of 11 percent through 2017. However, the events of the past few years, including the pandemic and its aftermath, such as the need to spend more time in the home and devote more attention to home care and hygiene, have introduced the industry to an unexpected upswing.
Lockdown has driven growth
Already in 2019, the industry had experienced a 0.9 percent growth in value, and in the following year, lockdowns drove sales of home care products. According to data from Assocasa – the National Association of Detergents and Specialties for Industry and the Home part of Federchimica – collected in collaboration with NielsenIq in the Detergent Market Observatory, in 2020 the sector recorded +7 percent in value and growth in all the main home care segments: +5 percent for detergents and +8.2 percent for washing aids, that is, all those products used to improve the performance of detergents (e.g., greater shine or softer). The dishware sector also grew 13.6 percent or 61 million euros, while bleach sales grew +16.8 percent to 32 million euros. According to the research, an unprecedented boom also came for the dishwasher detergent segment whose sales grew 20.8 percent to 16.7 million Italians. Slight decline, on the other hand, for the laundry segment (-4.3%), supported only by the sale of liquid caps (+0.9%).
Sales channels: online is growing
The most interesting aspect, however, concerns in sales channels preferred by Italians for the purchase of these products.
Again according to NielsenIq data, drugstores lead the growth with +11.5 percent, followed by supermarkets (+8.2 percent), which together generate nearly 60 percent of sales of home care products. More and more Italians, however, seem to be interested in purchasing home care products through the online channel. In fact, 5 percent of consumers say they prefer to purchase detergents via eCommerce.
Great interest especially for the virtual stores of professional cleaning and disinfection product sellers that, although not part of the big names in mass distribution, offer Made in Italy professional detergents by lowering the final price thanks to offers, discounts and vast assortments of products.
Factors driving purchase choices
Although affordability remains one of the main drivers of online market growth (a factor on which 84 percent of consumers focus), it is not the only one. Of course, product features also play a crucial role: in fact, 82 percent of consumers say they take into account efficacy and, in particular, the possibility of using the same disinfectant product on multiple surfaces (17 percent). Another important driver is then the wide range of products that e-Retailers can offer on their storefronts, a determining factor for 33% of consumers. Finally, the packaging, which must take into account not so much the consumer’s aesthetic taste, but rather convince them on a practical level: quantity of product, ease of use and practicality in being able to store it at home are in fact the real discriminating elements for the perfect package.
The key role of sustainability
There is one element, however, that we have not yet mentioned: sustainability, a theme that is now essential for any industry and that also plays a relevant role here. Indeed, 22 percent of consumers pay attention to the ecological factor, while 25 percent demand products free of harsh chemicals. More and more e-Shops are therefore offering entire catalogs of eco-friendly home care products. But product sustainability is not enough, especially when it comes to eCommerce.
In order to ensure maximum sustainability in the cleaning of one’s home, it would be good, in fact, to pay attention also to the process by which those same products arrive directly in homes: logistics.
When ordering a home care product online, for example, one can consider more environmentally conscious delivery options, such as home delivery alternatives, including Locker and Pickup Points, which allow for savings not only in economic and practical terms (including the ability to choose where and when to pick up one’s order), but also and especially environmental.
How to integrate Lockers and Pickup Points to your eCommerce?
With GEL Proximity, the first aggregator of Pickup Points, it’s very easy: just choose the plan that best suits your needs and immediately start offering your customers the ability to pick up orders at tens of thousands of already active Pickup Points and Lockers throughout the country and internationally. Easy, right? Contact us to get more information now.
