Birkins and Babies: The Surprising Overlap Between Luxury and Baby Durables

Play yards and Goyard may seem worlds apart, but these two industries have more in common than one might assume. From resilience to resale, here are some ABCs that apply to both.

I know a lot about baby durables. A lot. This is a result of my days as a Private Equity consultant, where I did a fair amount of work in this space. I became so knowledgeable on baby durables that my friends with- or expecting children started turning to me, a Childless Cat Lady™, for advice on what to buy.

Despite my aforementioned child-free life, the baby durables industry has held my fascination because of something I recognised early on: It has a lot in common with luxury goods (an industry of which I am an enthusiastic and frequent consumer). Surprised? So was I. Let’s get into it.

At the top end of the range, baby durables are eye-wateringly expensive. A Bugaboo bassinet stroller (the Rolls Royce of strollers, in my *ahem* expert opinion) will set you back well over €1,000 before you add any accessories, and a Stokke Sleepi bed costs nearly €700. Add in carriers, car seats, changing tables, and other essential furniture such as the Tripp Trapp chair (an iconic item not only because of its status as an absolute parenting must-have but also its enviable product margins and seriously impressive contribution to Stokke’s overall revenue), and you’re in for an expensive chapter in your life. But high prices aren’t the number one similarity between these entirely separate industries*:

1. Industry resilience: Despite a recent and rare slowdown in the luxury industry, it has historically been resilient to economic downturns - its target market is significantly less affected by such proletarian considerations as a recession than others. Baby durables as an industry is similarly resilient, though the reasons differ. In this case it’s primarily because customers (parents and soon-to-be-parents) would sooner spend less on themselves than forego buying the best they can for their child

2. Status and signalling: What is carrying a Chanel 255 other than signalling? Sure, it’s beautiful and the quality is good (maybe not quite ‘doubling-the-price-from-$5,000-to-$10,000-in-less-than-a-decade’ good, but good), but this is primarily about communicating something to the world about your wealth and/or social status. Baby durables are similar. Parents are, consciously or not, constantly vying to show they care about their offspring the absolute maximum amount possible (and more than you care for yours), and one of the many ways to do that is to buy the very best for them. Like cars and handbags, baby durables are items we take out into the world with us for others to see, so arriving at the park with a top-of-the-range stroller offers up the opportunity to say something about ourselves in much the same way arriving in a Bentley would

3. Resale as a value driver: I am constantly justifying Birkin prices based on the fact that resale returns have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past three decades. I do it (half) jokingly, but the data doesn’t lie. A similar dynamic exists in the baby durables market: Buyers of brand new items know they will be able to sell these for a decent price on the secondhand market down the line, a fact which they use partly to justify the price. And the quality and durability of reputable brands mean that when it comes time to sell, items are still in good enough condition to do so. In fact, the secondhand market is huge: Bugaboo has entered it directly, offering certified refurbished items direct-to-consumer, and Rebelstork can be summarised as “Vestiaire for baby products”

4. Irrational shoppers: Ignoring the point above about Birkin bags, it’s hard to actually justify spending €700 on a pair of Louboutin stilettos or €6,000 on a Lady Dior handbag, when there are countless stylish, high-quality alternatives available. But luxury does not deal in logic. Its customers make irrational, emotional purchasing decisions, frequently fuelled by guilt. When it comes to baby products, the mindset is not all that different. Baby durables are usually bought during moments of intense emotion and anxiety which heighten irrationality, something the category can leverage. The guilt is less around indulgence and more around parenting choices, but it is an omnipresent factor in the customer journey

There are a few other similarities. Purchases are often gifts (it’s common for grandparents-to-be to buy a stroller for their future grandchild/ren, and we all know you’re not supposed to buy yourself a Cartier love bracelet), and gifting on this level frequently walks hand-in-hand with overcompensation. Influencer marketing is key, with lifestyle bloggers these days as likely to unbox their latest Prada bag as they are the car seat they decided to go with in the end. And upselling (specifically with accessories) is big, with high-margin smaller-ticket add-ons (think of sun canopies and clip-on coffee holders as the industry equivalent of Miu Miu bag charms and Hermès key rings) being pushed to increase overall basket size. And while luxury sees a certain level of brand loyalty, the biggest luxury buyers’ collections span the length and breadth of available brands; similarly there is no halo effect in baby: Parents likely do more research than any other consumer group before making a purchase, and they will select the very best product in each category regardless of the brand.

Modern parenting may well be the new lifestyle branding frontier. And while parents-to-be might shift their spending from Cartier to car seats for a time, there are several chapters of the luxury playbook that can be repurposed as a paint-by-numbers guide for baby.

*Luxury and baby products do of course overlap, for example you can buy strollers from both Dior and Gucci, and Louis Vuitton has a full range including socks, clothing, and a literal silver spoon.