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The Product-Disposable Wipes
Just a decade ago, about the only wipes on the market were for babies' backsides. These days, there are wipes for virtually every household chore ? and virtually every part of the body.
The Existing Market
The exiting market grew out of the baby wipe industry. "The wiping of America is exploding into every product category," says Tom Vierhile, executive editor of Product Alert. Americans' dual infatuations with cleanliness and convenience account for the emerging trends of product enhancement and new users for products that incorporate the same or similar textile-like fabric of the baby wipe. Consumer preferences make even slight product variations ?sellable' to a market that values ?portable' or ?travel sized' packaging and the ?use it and toss it' disposal element. The fact that wipes cost about half what they did when a few were first tested a decade ago and a competitive market with downward pressure on pricing strategies allows for easy market entry for competitors and short ?time to market' development cycles.
The existing market covers three major segments:
? Personal Care-Humans & Animals
? Automobile & Marine
? Household or Commercial Cleaning
About 28 billion individual baby wipes were sold last year ? and nearly 40% of them weren't used for cleaning baby backsides. In many cases, adults are using them to wipe their own hands and faces.
Just twelve years ago, P&G didn't make or sell a single wipe. In 2002, baby wipes accounted for nearly 2% of P&G's total sales ? or about $800 million. An ind ...