IHA Connect SPRING 2021:
Evolving Consumer Needs Dictate Product Development Opportunities

March 29, 2021: Connect SPRING, presented by The International Housewares Association in partnership with The NPD Group and Springboard Futures, was held digitally from March 16 to March 26, 2021, and helped fill the gap caused by the cancelation of The Inspired Home Show (formerly known as the Housewares Show) this year. Many of the sessions examined how consumer trends that have emerged or accelerated during the pandemic offer opportunities for product development in the home and housewares industry. The information offers inspiration for marketers of licensed products in this sector and beyond.

For 2020, almost all home-related categories tracked by NPD—home textiles, housewares, home environment, kitchen appliances, and personal care appliances—grew substantially. The researcher estimates retail sales in all of those sectors collectively increased by 21% in 2020 over 2019. The strong performance held across the board; in home environment, sales rose in 90% of sub-categories, while the same was true for at least 70% of subcategories in the other segments measured.

Performance was driven by changing consumer behavior, assisted by a redirection of discretionary funds away from experiential activities such as eating out, as well as bumps from stimulus payments along the way.

All of Life Happens at Home

When the home became workplace, school, gym, coffee shop, restaurant, and movie theater, new needs arose that spurred housewares and home goods purchases. “Our home has suddenly become our whole world,” says Tom Mirabile, principal and founder of Springboard Futures.

One need was to create spaces that served multiple functions, such as work and dining, while also maintaining a boundary between the various activities. Thus the rise of the “cloffice,” for example, which Leatrice (Lee) Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, identified as a top Pinterest trend. This is the idea of putting an office in a closet, thus transforming a section of the bedroom or living room into a home office that disappears when the door is closed.

“We have seen so many unique creative hacks the consumer has done,” said Joe Derochowski, NPD’s home industry advisor. “Now how can we as an industry leverage them?”

“The consumer has created a tremendous capacity to do life at home in a variety of ways,” agreed NPD’s David Portalin, VP and industry advisor for food.

Accommodating different activities and multiple generations in the house at all times, along with a desire to interact with friends and family safely, accelerated the trend for outdoor spaces. These have been used not just for traditional leisure activities like grilling and gardening but for everything from watching TV, films, and sporting events to participating in work-related Zoom calls. Some families converted their garages to living spaces as well.

Many consumers went even further by moving into bigger homes, giving them room for a dedicated home office, for example. As it became clear that many employees would end up working from home full- or part-time after the pandemic, a growing number have moved out of urban areas, reversing pre-pandemic trends.

Of course a critical need during the pandemic was to keep the whole family occupied, both alone and as a unit. “Last year [2019] was about giving time back to the consumer,” says Leana Salamah, IHA’s VP marketing. “Now it’s more about what consumers can do with the time on their hands.” One key activity has been cooking and baking together, with consumers trying new recipes or techniques, learning to cook or bake for the first time, and/or focusing on kids’ cooking activities. Gardening and home improvement also saw a burst of activity as a way to fill time in a rewarding way.

Celebrations, too, came into the home. Weddings, much smaller than planned, took place in the backyard. More people cooked Thanksgiving dinner than ever before. Graduation celebrations took place over Zoom. “Gen X and millennials have this ethos of celebrating everything,” says Mirabile. “They’re stir-crazy and depressed inside the house and need something to celebrate, then share on Instagram.”

Impacts on Product Development

These trends not only boosted sales in many categories, they also offered opportunities to create new products and reposition existing ones for new purposes. Some notable developments have included:

• Cookware and appliances for multiple occasions and functions. Examples range from appliances that cook using multiple techniques to mini-refrigerators with reconfigurable shelves and storage. This is a pivot from pre-pandemic, when specialty items were proliferating. And the compactness of the object is not as important as its range of function. “We’re moving away from how products fit into a space,” says Salamah. “Now it’s how they transform the space into one that can serve multiple purposes.” Kitchen electrics in the U.S. showed 27.9% growth in 2020 versus 2019, according to NPD, with multifunctionality being one big growth driver.

• Products to support one-pot or one-dish meals that are simple and versatile while allowing for the efficient use of leftovers. NPD found that Dutch ovens, stockpots, and other one-pot-style categories grew 50% to 60% each in 2020.

• Solutions that are portable to be used in any room, outdoors, during the commute, or in the office when that time comes. A coffee maker or prepared-smoothie maker is useful all around the house, not just in the kitchen.

• Products for outdoor (and garage) living. The needs are beyond traditional patio and garden décor, extending to areas ranging from portable cooking devices (not just the grill) to projectors for watching TV and streamed entertainment on the side of a garage.

• Appliances that bring off-site experiences home. These range from sophisticated, restaurant-style cooking techniques, to massagers and hair care solutions typically offered by a spa, to cold-brew coffee makers (the last up 72% last year, per NPD). Personal care items, including hot air stylers, massagers, facial trimmers, and home hair clippers, were up 9.3% collectively.

• Gadgets, appliances, and tools that allow consumers to experiment in the kitchen with new techniques. These fit the need for new pastimes, activities to share with family in person or via Zoom, or variety in meal preparation. Such solutions must come with adequate information to help inexperienced cooks participate.

• Products to reduce the stress that comes with cooking more meals at home. This means not only easy-to-use functionality and clear instructions, but also an appealing story about the benefits of a new gadget and plenty of ideas for new ways to use it.

In general, anything related to cooking, baking, and home décor showed strength in 2020. “Cookware had a monstrous year,” said Derochowski. He added that that bed and bath textiles were up 18% each and window treatments up 30%, driven by the need to redecorate alongside DIY projects around the house. “It’s been awhile since we’ve seen growth in these areas,” he said.

Comfort, Cleanliness, Security, and Safety

Not surprisingly, the idea of keeping oneself and one’s family clean and safe has come to the forefront since the pandemic began. COVID fears drove the change, but other factors, such as widespread civil unrest, also contributed.

Home environment was up 31.3%—the biggest increase of the major categories tracked by NPD across industries—led by air purifiers with growth of 138% in 2020. New products appropriate for the times, such as touchless hand sanitizer dispensers and portable UV light sanitation boxes, were introduced throughout last year and into 2021.

Bathrooms became more of a focus for new products and DIY projects than they had in years, thanks not only to a desire for cleanliness for the family but also to a trend to set up separate bathrooms for visitors. Safety extends throughout the home, with soap sanitizer dispensers (up 40% in sales this year) located in living rooms, patios, and inside the front door, not to mention in the car, workplace, airplane, hotel, school, and everywhere life happens. The design of the object must work for all of these spaces.

Closely related to safety and security is comfort, which has driven numerous trends. Pillows were up 23% in 2020, for example, while the boost in floor care (representing four of the top five growth categories in the home environment space) was propelled largely by the growth in pet ownership, one way families have found comfort during the pandemic. Self-care products such as massagers (up 64%) also play into this trend, as do breadmakers, home décor to create an appealing sanctuary, and much more.

Comfort can take many forms, according to speakers at Connect SPRING, including stress relief, a sense of togetherness and community, or small indulgences (e.g., carb-filled dishes or cocktails).

Safety and comfort are key factors across categories. Copper nanoparticle-infused placemats are anti-microbial, anti-fungal, and anti–viral (including killing the virus that causes COVID-19). Individual cake pans and personal pizza makers prevent the spread of germs by giving everyone their own entirely separate serving. Sometimes innovation is about repositioning; individual cake pans would previously have been more about personalization than safety and comfort.

Future Forecasting

What products will continue their fast growth trajectories after the pandemic? What future needs can the industry meet? Forecasting, as in any sector of licensing, is difficult given the uncertainty ahead.

Some of the changes that have occurred during the pandemic are structural, such as the fact that people have moved or reconfigured their homes. They are not going to go back to the old ways in these circumstances.

Most experts currently agree that working from home will remain in place in some form post-pandemic. This will continue to drive the need for products to help maximize small spaces and serve multiple functions. It will also likely cause more families to upsize or relocate further outside the cities, creating more opportunity to meet their needs as they furnish their new homes.

Another thing to consider is what needs can be addressed during the different stages of society reopening. It is difficult to predict the timing, given uncertainty about vaccination rates and new variants. But it is certain that each stage will require different products, services, shopping methods, and experiences.

Throughout all the stages of reopening, it is important to remember that individual consumers will handle the process uniquely, with their own behaviors and preferred products, services, and shopping options along the way. There will also be regional differences, stops and starts in the reopening process, and different levels of comfort depending on specific behavior (e.g. hugging a grandchild versus going back to a manicurist).

That means marketers must provide many options along a continuum. People working from home will need solutions for quick and convenient lunches, for example, while those going to the office, at least initially, will need products to allow them to remain at their desks as much as possible rather than visiting the break room.

Empathy for the consumer was one topic that came up often during Connect SPRING. “It starts with the listening and the watching and the anticipating and asking questions,” said Derochowski. “It’s really a deep empathy with the consumer.”

Since everyone has gone through the pandemic together, consumers have an expectation of empathy from marketers. “Last year the message was ‘we get you,’ but now it’s ‘we are you,’” said Mirabile.

Cross-industry collaboration will also be key to success. The food, housewares, and technology industries need to work more closely together than in the past to identify and solve needs in the kitchen, for example.

A key area of opportunity will be addressing the tension between wanting to retain some of the benefits of the stay-at-home era—such as stronger family connections, more time for DIY projects and hobbies, and simply enjoying the sanctuary of home—and the pressures of restarting aspects of a busy former life, such as kids’ soccer games, commuting, going out to concerts, running errands, and the like.

“Any time there’s a lot of change, there’s money to be made,” says Derochowski. “Innovation is critical. If I can solve those pains and wishes and frustrations better than what they’re currently doing, I can make a lot of money. It’s a time when we can revolutionize all of our business and really help make our consumers’ lives better, if we’re creative.”