The African continent is acclaimed for being the continent with the fastest growing population due to high fertility and birth rates. At least 30 million live babies are born annually on the continent. There is, of course, widespread debate on whether that’s a good or bad thing. The main argument against that population surge is the ever-increasing stress on food resources. On the business front that’s positive because money can be made from all those babies. There is a wide array of business services that are sought ante and post-natal. Herein I’m focusing on businesses directly targeting the actual babies.

Some businesses can amalgamate all these domains and more into one; whilst others can choose to focus on only one or some of them. My resulting intention is to somewhat provoke your entrepreneurial juices so that hopefully you venture into such businesses.

Baby Clothes

This domain is so huge that it’s considered the biggest proportion of the overall global clothing industry. It’s not a surprising sight to see whole outlets selling only baby clothes – that speaks to how in-demand baby clothes are. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry in Africa. So this is one niche you won’t go wrong on if you decide to go into baby clothing retail. It’s also worth noting that another indirect niche is servicing the demand for maternity wear for the mothers.

Baby Toys

There is an infinite number of toy ranges to choose from being they analogue, digital or just inanimate. You can be strategic in ensuring you have toys for the different baby age ranges. Usually, most people incorporate this domain as an auxiliary feature of their other business ranges as opposed to just specializing in that alone.

Baby Foods & Formulas

Babies obviously require specialized foods when they start receiving solid food. Actually, even soon after birth, some mothers choose to use baby formula as opposed to breastfeeding. This can be necessitated by certain medical reasons or some other miscellaneous reasons. The point is, there many exclusive types of foods meant for babies that some businesses can choose to retail.

Baby Body Care Products

Some businesses choose to focus on retailing baby body care products. Baby skin is highly sensitive and requires the use of very specialized products. Some of the product ranges include lotions, greases, powders, cleaners and detergents. Here we also find popular products such as diapers and nappies. Some businesses that focus on totally different niches like hair products are actually leveraging on the high demand for diapers to lure prospective consumers.

Baby Care Accessories

This cluster deals with a diverse range of other baby-related accessories or hardware that are central to their daily care. Some of the items here are perambulators, baby furniture (cots for example), bedding material, feeding material and so on. This is another domain that’s almost as highly on-demand as the baby clothing sector.

Other popular lines of business include the following:

Medicare

Babies require delicate care from point of birth as they may be born prematurely or may be prone to illness in their early days. Medicare service providers such as private hospitals and also pharmacies are business players that can make money from targeting baby-related health issues. These players even make money from the mothers of the babies ante and post-natal as they tend to require medical assistance from time to time.

Day Care Services

Players in this business area employ very diverse approaches and target different niches. Some have set up day care centres where people can pay to have their babies taken care of during working hours. Some businesses serve as agencies that provide daycare providers that can be hired to take care of babies at their respective homes. I’ve noticed however such services are more common amongst high-end communities that are considered rich.

If you intend to penetrate this huge market for baby products and services then you must capitalize on new media. Most of the current players exist mainly as brick and mortar business service providers only. So if you come in with a significant web and social media presence you’ll definitely have a cutting edge advantage ahead of pre-existing players.

The local world of baby-related commerce is still vastly unrefined and untapped. Most of the current businesses focus on retail. This means we are mainly importing most of the goods that we end up retailing to our local market. A redirection of efforts to focus more on home-grown brands can open up more opportunities and the offering of cheaper alternatives for locals. I know so many people who sewed and knitted most of what their children wear or wore as babies. How those people have never thought to build brands by leveraging on such skills is something that really surprises me. From the moment you started reading this article numerous babies have been born in that time – let’s tap into this unending potential.