Despite a Constant Demand, Parents Cut Back on Diaper Purchases

You know that times are tough when parents cut back on diaper purchases.  There's really no substitute for a diaper, after all.  The need, as economists might say, remains constant.

Times must be tough then because, sure enough, diaper sales, like diapers themselves, are soft -- off by at least 1% in the four weeks ending Sept. 4  compared to a year earlier.  That might not sound like much but it follows a long series of declines.

Not only is there a decline in the number of diapers purchased, dollar volume is also down by 4% or so, which would indicate that parents are not only buying fewer diapers but also cheaper ones, although even sales of generic diapers are down, according to a study quoted by The Wall Street Journal. 

Now there are lots of variables here.  Counting diapers isn't rocket science, after all.  We don't know, for example, exactly how many babies there are at any given time.  Or what they're eating.  Or how fussy their parents are.  Or how many of them might be trying out cloth diapers (answer: not many, and not for long).

Price is certainly a factor, though, and a big one, according to a ConsumerAffairs.com analysis of about 110,000 comments on Facebook, Twitter and other blogs and social media.

Looking at a sample of 719 comments by diaper gripers, we found that fully 87% were peeved about the cost.  The others mostly complained about diaper rash; 2% didn't like the smell.

Price war

So if the price is an obstacle, why don't Kimberly-Clark and Proctor & Gamble simply drop the price of their Huggies, Pampers and Luvs?

Well, believe it or not, it's for the same reason the airlines have gotten so stingy with their peanuts.  Yep, diapers are made out of the stuff that make airplanes and cars go -- oil.

The reason diapers are so absorbent is that they're made of a super-absorbent polymer, which is a petroleum-based derivative.  Diapers also contain polypropylene and polyethylene -- also from oil.

Didn't know that oil was softer than a baby's bottom, did you?  

Major brands

There's not a startling difference in brand preference among the three big brands -- Kimberly-Clark's Huggies and Procter & Gamble's Pampers and Luvs.

Pampers

While some parents are still chafed at P&G's remarkably brutal handling of a still-unexplained outbreak of diaper rash among its Pampers-wearing clientele, the brand holds an enviable net positive sentiment that nears 80% in recent weeks, based on about 710,000 comments over the last year.

Pampers got fairly high marks from the moms we found browsing on Amazon, although there were some negative comments about pricing.

And in our very own complaint department, we found numerous complaints from parents blaming Pampers for their child's diaper rash.  Although P&G has dismissed the complaints and decreed the controversy is over, it appears doomed to live on in at least some corners of consumerdom.

Luvs

Luvs does nearly as well as Pampers in net sentiment, displaying no notable negatives, though there were far fewer mentions -- only about 31,000.  

Interestingly, the ConsumerAffairs.com database contains a basketful of Luvs complaints that are strikingly similar to those lodged by Pampers users.   A North Carolina mom complained that her 10-month-old suffered from painful diaper rash similar to those described by Pampers parents.

"Lately he had been so irritable and cranky as the rash continued to worsen no matter how much I air dried him and creamed the area. I was changing his diaper every 1-2 hours trying to alleviate the irritation when I discovered that the diapers had begun to explode at the leg gatherings," she said.

Huggies

We found about 250,000 comments about Huggies, displaying a very steady approval rating of about 60%.

Among the comments we studied, Huggies Overnights seemed to ring a positive chord with parents hoping for a few more minutes of shut-eye.

Not only that, but Huggies is virtually absent from the ConsumerAffairs.com complaint database, always a positive (if rare) sign. 

Oh and by the way, if you think that Twitter lends itself to short bleeps by moms stuck at home with the baby, think again.  We found diaper discussions almost exclusively on specialized parenting sites and on sites like Amazon.com, where consumers post reviews of products they purchased earlier.

We're not saying babies' parents don't Tweet but ... well, if they do it's about something other than diapers.