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Household Wipes Market Struggles To Win Over New Customers



By Adrian Atterby
Euromonitor International




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After a period of sustained development, global value sales of household cleaning wipes have stagnated recently. Even in markets where consumers have access to the highest levels of disposable income, such as North America or Western Europe, sales have suffered, with the French market in particular witnessing poor value performance.

One of the main reasons for this decline is the perceived worsening of global economic conditions. This has caused consumers to be more watchful over their spending habits, resulting in a switch back to more traditional cleaning products, which are seen as being more cost-effective. Household wipes are still viewed as luxury items by the majority of consumers, who fail to recognize the additional benefits the products bring when compared to older formats and are therefore reluctant to pay a price premium for them.

Growth in both the quality and the availability of private label products has also had a detrimental effect on the market. Not only have they taken significant business away from brands, but they have also restricted manufacturers’ ability to increase prices. The effect has been most pronounced in France where, despite volume sales declines in most categories of between 5-10%, revenue has declined much more sharply.