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Summary of our market study
The French children's clothing market is estimated at 2.5 billion euros.
The European market for children's and baby clothing is estimated at between 45 and 50 billion euros.
One of the main influences on demand for children's clothing is the fertility rate, which fell from 12.8 births per 1,000 inhabitants to 11.3 over the decade. At the same time, the total number of births fell from around 830,000 to 760,000.
Demand is also influenced by the growing preference for second-hand clothing.
The children's clothing market is highly competitive, with a multitude of players including specialist brands, general retailers and e-commerce giants.
Children's clothing prices are expected to continue their downward trend, driven by imports from Asian countries and reduced consumer spending on clothing.
Sales of girls' clothing reached almost 1.5 billion euros, compared with 1 billion euros for boys.
E-commerce is booming.
Industry players
- H&M is a world leader in fast fashion
- Zara, part of the Inditex group, .
Family clothing brands
- Kiabi "Fashion for the whole family at low prices".
- IKKS brings a French design perspective to children's fashion
- C&A
Brands specializing in children's clothing
- Okaïdi-Obaïbi focuses exclusively on children's fashion
- Sergent Major embodies a whimsical approach
- Petit Bateau is a renowned French brand.
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Summary and extracts
1 Market overview
1.1 Definition and scope of study
The children's apparel market covers all clothing and fashion accessories for children aged 2 to 14.
The global market for children's apparel is booming, and outperforming the adult market in both the men's and women's segments. The Asia-Pacific and North American markets dominate the global market, followed by the European market.
In France, the children's clothing market is one of the most buoyant segments in a clothing market that is tending to shrink. The market is mainly structured around specialized players, adult fashion companies that sell a children's range, and food superstores with a clothing section. The market has suffered since the covid crisis, and many well-established brands, such as Sergent Major, have gone into receivership.
The children's clothing market is benefiting from the popularity of online sales, and is investing in ever more efficient in-store delivery and collection services. The sector's specialist brands are also present on the various online distribution platforms. However, the share of online sales in the children's apparel market is lower than in the overall apparel market. More generally, it is innovation and mastery of digital technology that enable players to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market, where parents need to be convinced.
Partly due to pressures on purchasing power and the fashion industry's sensitivity to environmental impacts, the second-hand market is showing growing results. In fact, some brands in the children's clothing market are taking advantage of the trend to launch their own resale platforms.
In 2023, in the July-September quarter, i.e. the back-to-school period, sales of children's clothing in France amounted to 857 million, for 10.3 million children between the ages of 2 and 14 in France.
This market study does not include children's footwear, but focuses on children's ready-to-wear.
1.2 Global market
The global market size for children's apparel was US$***.* billion in ****. Industry sales are expected to reach US$***.** billion in ****, according to FortuneBusinessInsight estimates. The market should therefore continue to grow at a CAGR of *.**% over the period ****-****.
Global children's apparel market size World, **** - ****, in billions of USD Source: ...
1.3 The French market
The French children's fashion market is quite unstable, as purchases of children's clothing are generally a low priority in the consumption trade-off of French households, and are highly dependent on the purchasing power of the French. For some years now, sales of children's clothing in the July-September period have been declining, ...
2 Demand analysis
2.1 Declining demographics in France
The dynamics of the French children's clothing market are correlated with the annual fertility rate in France, and the resulting number of births. This study concentrates on children's clothing and excludes babywear, but studying the number of births still enables us to forecast demand trends over a number of years.
Births ...
2.2 Children's clothing purchases
The children's clothing market is a special one in that, in most cases, it's the parents who decide what to buy and then make the purchase. Thus, their choice criteria and the factors influencing them are essential determinants of demand in the children's clothing market. Clothing as an expenditure item: According ...
2.3 Demand for children's clothing on the Internet
Most children's clothing is sold in stores, compared with just **% online. The proportion of online sales has not increased compared to **** (***). What's more, the share of online sales is lower for the children's clothing segment than for the overall apparel market, for which **.*% of sales by value are made via the ...
2.4 Changes in consumer behavior in the apparel market following the covid-19 crisis
The consequences of the health crisis have led to a change in consumer behavior in the clothing market.
Strong growth in e-commerce:
In ****, online sales jumped ***% compared with ****, the benchmark year since before the health crisis. What's more, we can also see that the e-commerce trend is continuing, with online sales ...
2.5 Demand trends
Demand for second-hand goods
Another strategy adopted by the French to limit their spending is to opt for second-hand goods. This practice has spread to many sectors, particularly fashion, cultural goods, furnishings and decoration. This trend is even stronger in children's fashion, where, according to a study by EY, over **% of ...
2.6 France's favorite brands
The brands most appreciated by the French in the children's fashion segment are Petit bateau, Kiabi, Gemo and Intersport, with respectively **.*%, **.*%, **.*% and **.*% of French people saying they like these brands. It should not be forgotten that these brands also offer an adult range and are therefore more likely to be known, ...
3 Market structure
3.1 Value chain
The value chain for the children's clothing market is shown below:
Source: ****
The production of children's products involves several stages. Raw materials are either extracted from animals such as wool or plants such as cotton, or created by man through the synthesis of chemical compounds. These raw materials are used to ...
3.2 Clothing production in France
There are no specific figures for the production of children's clothing in France, since most of the brands that manufacture children's clothing also produce women's and/or men's clothing, although there are some players that produce exclusively children's clothing.
The aim of this section is therefore to analyze overall production in ...
3.3 Clothing distribution
Generally speaking, the children's ready-to-wear market has been in decline for several years, due to inflation and the rise of second-hand clothing, which is taking up more and more of the market. The mid-range segment, like women's ready-to-wear, is the most endangered, and has been marked by a number of safeguard ...
4 Offer analysis
4.1 Variable prices for variable product quality
Children's clothing can be grouped into three main categories:
Outerwear, which is worn to school or simply outdoors. These include heavy items such as coats, jackets and blousons; undergarments such as dresses, pants and jeans; and small items including t-shirts, pullovers and tracksuits. Shoes, both sports and casual. Some brands have ...
4.2 Major price fluctuations
The following graph shows that the consumer price index for baby and children's clothing is declining over the period ****-****, reflecting a structural decline in children's ready-to-wear prices in France in recent years.
Consumer prices for baby and children's clothing France, ****-****, base *** in **** Source: ****
This fall in prices over this ...
4.3 Supply trends
The development of e-commerce
To capitalize on the synergies between websites and physical stores, leading children's apparel brands are increasingly developing omnichannel solutions designed to offer a linear and coherent experience across the different sales channels (***). For example, many brands such as Sergent Major and Petit Bateau have launched ultra-fast in-store ...
5 Regulations
5.1 Regulations
Children's safety
Children's clothing is subject to regulations designed to guarantee children's safety. These apply to the components of children's clothing, such as cords and laces, buttons, clasps, etc. The standards in force are as follows[***] :
NF EN ***** : Safety of clothing - cords and drawstrings - specifications ; NF EN *****: performance levels ...
6 Companies
6.1 Market segmentation
- GAP
- Inditex groupe (Zara)
- Kiabi Europe
- IKKS
- C&A France
- Générale pour l'enfant Groupe (Sergent Major)
- Petit Bateau
- Intersport France
- Idkids Groupe
- Jacadi (Idkids groupe)
- Sport 2000
- GEMO (Eram Groupe)
- Vert Baudet
- Cyrillus
- DPAM Du Pareil au Même (Générale pour l'enfant groupe)
- Catimini (Idkids Groupe)
- Natalys
- Petit Pan
- Absorba (Idkids Groupe)
- Okaidi (Idkids)
- Tape à l'Œil
- Orchestra Prémaman
- Sucre d'Orge
- Petit Béguin
- Vinted
- Shein
List of charts presented in this market study
- Global market size for children's clothing
- Children's apparel market size
- Children's ready-to-wear sales over the back-to-school period
- Children's fashion market trends
- Children's ready-to-wear on sale and at full price
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Latest news
Zara successfully moves upmarket in the face of ultra-fast fashion - 13/09/2024
- - Inditex owns brands such as Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Zara.
- - Zara focuses on moving upmarket rather than competing with ultra-fast fashion.
- - Zara has over 1,800 stores worldwide.
Zara's recipe for remaining the world's leading ready-to-wear brand - 10/07/2024
- - Head office: Arteixo, ten kilometers from La Coruña, Spain.
- - Sales: nearly 36 billion euros last year.
- - Share of capital held by Amancio Ortega: 59%.
- - Proportion of production carried out close to main markets: 50% (in countries such as Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey).
- - Worldwide store replenishment frequency: twice a week.
Thanks to Etixia, Kiabi becomes a fully-fledged commercial real estate player - 27/06/2024
- Former creation of Etixia to consolidate Kiabi's real estate assets
- - Sales in 2023: 43.2 million euros.
Orchestra moves forward and modernizes its store network - 04/06/2024
- - 250 stores in France.
- - Nearly 100 affiliates in France.
- - International master-franchise development.
- - 8% of sales generated digitally.
- - Total Orchestra sales of 500 million euros by 2023.
- - 400 stores worldwide. - 3,000 employees worldwide.
Kiabi buys second-hand children's products website Beebs - 24/05/2024
- Beebs, a start-up specializing in second-hand children's products, was acquired by Kiabi after it was placed in receivership last March.
- - Liquidation of Rediv (ex-Patatam)
- - Beebs sold 690,000 second-hand children's items in 2023
Natalys (General pour l'Enfant group) falls into receivership - 22/05/2024
- - GPE parent company in receivership
- - Natalys in receivership
- - Receivership of Du Pareil au Même (DPAM)
- - Sergent Major in receivership
- - Current number of Natalys stores: 14, most of them in Paris and the Paris region.
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the children's clothing market | France
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