NPD Expands Housewares Coverage Into New Segments

The NPD Group has launched additional segment coverage of the kitchen gadgets, food storage and portable/travel beverageware categories, expanding the breadth of its housewares retail market data offerings.

In addition, NPD has added census retail tracking for food and drug retailers to its core tracking service. The new services are a direct result of NPD’s market information partnership with Nielsen earlier this year. The new tracking has been integrated into NPD’s existing POS tracking software.

“We are now tracking $7.1 billion of retail sales in the housewares industry,” said Lora Morsovillo, president, home, The NPD Group. “Kitchen gadgets alone represent about $1.4 billion of that total. When you roll these three new categories together, the total is $3 billion of volume. Add that to the $4 billion we had already been covering and we have almost doubled our coverage.”

Morsovillo noted that kitchen gadgets is the largest of the new categories, with NPD reporting that more than 305 million gadgets were sold in the U.S. in the 12 months ending October 2015. NPD has broken the category down into sub-groups that include preparation, cooking, serving, specialty and entertaining.

The food storage category includes both disposable and non-disposable storage containers, as well as specialty storage containers designed for specific foods, such as cake containers and bread keepers, which NPD has reported is the fastest growing segment with a 23% increase in dollar sales versus the prior year.

Portable beverageware, led by those made from acrylic, which is the fastest growing material in this category, tracks vessels with lids including travel mugs, water bottles, and highball/tumblers with lids. Morsovillo noted that children’s beverageware, mason jar-shaped beverageware, mugs, dispensers and punch bowls will soon be added.

“Part of our growth coverage is because of the food and drug sales data integration,” she said. “Some of the items in these new categories, especially gadgets, move so much more quickly in those retail channels, so this has allowed us to launch this tracking. It is giving us broader coverage over a full department of home, which has been really important to us and our retailers.”

For more on NPD, see the December 14, 2015, issue of HOMEWORLD BUSINESS®. This issue also features the annual year in review, category by category.