The Wilkinet Survey

Who are we?

The Wilkinet baby carrier was designed in the early 1980s by Sally Wilkins.  Since then it has become a firm favourite among parents in the UK and around the world.  The baby carrier has won awards from the parenting press and has been praised by osteopaths and hospital physios.

What's the Survey?

When Sally's son, Gideon, got involved in the business in 2006 the first thing on his list of things to do was to start getting to know his customers.  With a background and qualifications in market research Gideon quickly set about creating an in depth study of the Wilkinet customer base.

After completing this survey Gideon saw an opportunity to expand the research to other sectors on the Nursery industry - the Wilkinet Survey was born.

How does it work?

We interview between 300 and 500 people every month.  Who are they? They're the life blood of the nursery trade: Pregnant mums, New parents... potential customers.

About 50% of the people we interview are soon- to-be first time parents (the others are new parents or pregnant people who already have children).  With a long shopping list and several months of pregnancy remaining, it's an exciting opportunity to take 5-10 minutes of their time and quiz them about all aspects of baby products and accessories.

All surveys are completed on the internet - the people we speak to are not connected to Wilkinet and aren't our customers (though we'd like some of them to be!).  Just like you might be stopped on the high-street to be asked to do market research, we take a similar approach... but online.

Why are we doing this?

Two reasons... 

Firstly - we're really interested in what new mums have to say - we want to understand their experience to allow Wilkinet (and the rest of the nursery trade) to improve our service to them

Secondly - it's a great way for us as a baby carrier manufacturer to become better known within the industry and let people find out more about the carrier.  If you're interested in stocking the Wilkinet baby carrier then please contact us.

What information will be available

We will regularly send an update of our latest research - from the most popular brand, colour and style of pushchair, car seat or any other baby product - through to how to attract more customers.

The summary we send out will be free and available for all - whether you're a retailer, manufacturer, journalist, agent - and everyone else.

How reliable is the information

With Gideon's market research experience we are confident in the strength and validity of the results we get from the surveys.

That's because: 

• We only interview people who either have young children or are currently pregnant - everyone else gets filtered out of the survey

• We use a special technique called 'frame of mind' targeting to recruit survey respondents are looking for looking for baby/parenting related information.

• We asked demographic questions - so we know their age, salary, social group, marital & employment status... and even their postcode region.  We've checked these against the government's statistics and they are in line with national averages.

• They are real people - 50% agree to be contacted again and 33% give their details to participate in future research (this also means we can independently verify they are genuine).

• We only offer baby carriers to retailers - because of this our information on other hardware is neutral - we've no reason to prefer one brand over another.

• With 25 years experience in the nursery industry we understand what it's like to be a parent... and what it means to sell to them - so all our research and analysis is backed up with the experience and awareness of the issues around the trade.

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