As my wife and I have been preparing for the arrival of our first child we had to spend many a weekend wandering around baby shops buying everything we need. It’s been quite a frustrating process, we’ve never been parents before so we didn’t know what we needed. As usual we searched the Internet for lists of new baby essentials, but even then, through our antenatal classes we learned that some essentials weren’t and picked up some tips for items that should have been on our essentials list.

Once you actually wander around the shops it gets worse, you get presented by so many options it’s easy to become overloaded. On top of that the sales assistants seem to be quite good at subtly suggesting you’re bad parents if you don’t get the best this or that and quite quickly you’re totally fed up of the whole experience.

So it occurs to me that there’s a great business opportunity here, or perhaps even enough of an idea for a business. What if someone were to put together a good simple leaflet explaining what the essential buys are, why they are needed and the pros and cons of the budget models versus the top of the range. Now if an existing business like Mothercare did this they could then offer the entire lot as a new baby start kit, possibly even a basic kit and a deluxe kit to suit different budgets.

Alternatively a small local shop could do the same and use it to drive business to them, by becoming a trusted expert they’ll be the first port of call for advice and even if they can’t supply any of the items directly they could introduce the customer to a supplier that can (and of course there’s nothing to stop them arranging to take a commission from such purchases).

The trick then is to get the list printed as a mini-guide and hand them out at places where new and expectant mothers can be found.

This post is part of my child friendly business ideas week.

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