Baby Gear Boom

Baby accessories have become high-priced, highly designed gear.

ByABC News
January 8, 2009, 12:19 AM

June 28, 2007 — -- You're about to become a new parent and you're in the market for a stroller or crib for your newborn, but you want to avoid the countrified aesthetic your in-laws are pushing. Don't despair. There are more options than ever before. Just don't be surprised by sticker shock -- baby accessories have become high-priced, highly designed gear and furniture.

Type in "baby gear" on Google and you will get more than 36 million results. Try "cool baby gear" and you'll retrieve more than 5 million pages. If you're still desperate, try searching "hip baby gear" and you'll have more than 2 million pages for the choosing.

The market for baby gear has more than quadrupled in the last 20 years -- the industry had more than $7.3 billion in sales last year -- and it does not appear to be a waning trend.

After a few minutes browsing the net or shopping at the various baby boutiques, which have cropped up from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York in the last five years, new parents might think that they'll only be able to have cribs for their child if they wear barrels for clothes for the first five years of parenthood.

If you're obsessing about really needing a $600 Finnish bassinet, a Moderne $1,600 crib with matching $1,500 changing station, or the Dutch-designed Bugaboo stroller that will run you a grand (there's currently a $4,000 Maclaren on the market if you're desperate) don't fret. Strollers, cribs, and high chairs can still be purchased for under $100, but it's just as easy to find the items that cost over a $1,000 these days.

Nyro Murphy owns Bump, a maternity and baby boutique in Seattle and believes designer baby gear is just starting to reach its potential: "There are new products being created every day. It's a huge market, a booming market, and there's a lot of competition within the marketplace."

The reason she believes new parents are willing to spend more than $300 on high chairs and $500 on an organic mattress -- cache? "It's definitely status driven. People are marketing new high end products as status symbols."