Rising urbanisation in Australia and consumers spending less time at home is leading to a growing reluctance to spend time doing household chores. In response to this situation, leading brands such as Ajax and Dettol have started to introduce ready-to-use products, smaller packing formats and multi-purpose products that are easier and quicker to use.
Across various home care categories such as laundry care, the use of smaller packs by manufacturers is becoming increasingly popular, given that many consumers are now renting apartments rather than owning houses. The reduced storage space and changing lifestyle habits mean that consumers are becoming increasingly polarised between large families seeking larger packaging formats to reduce the frequency of purchases and to enjoy cost savings on bulk purchase on the one hand and younger new renters seeking convenient ready-to-use packaging that simplifies the household cleaning process on the other.
Outlook
Rising urbanisation and increasingly hectic lifestyles are expected to remain major trends. As a result, demand for home care products that can help consumers to reduce the amount of time spent on household chores is expected to increase. Liquid detergent tablets are expected to grow strongly in the next five years. Historically, Australians were generally reluctant to embrace laundry capsules due to their higher unit prices in comparison with liquid detergents, which led to there being few incentives to switch to this format, which is already popular in Europe and North America. However, this trend is set to change with manufacturers more likely to slowly but steadily push this format in laundry care.