Maternity Clothing Is Dying. Here's What That Looks Like From the Inside.

Nearly a decade ago, Rachelle started Nest & Sprout as a maternity clothing store serving Prince George, BC. She recognized that pregnant women were severely underserved in their options for maternity clothing and wanted to bring more options to town - and today, the maternity clothing space continues to fade into oblivion.

The big brands have already done it, and it's just us little guys existing in the brick & mortar space. Thyme Maternity closed all 54 Canadian locations in 2020, and Destination Maternity filed for bankruptcy and closed all 29 Canadian locations around the same time

And I’m about to discontinue our maternity collection. It’s a very large time consuming collection that earns less than 5% of our annual sales. Sometimes it feels like it would just be one less thing to think about in an already diverse collection. Maternity consignment has moved faster than previous, but with so few brands on the market, the consignment pieces are usually meh, and in meh condition. I do ponder being super specific about our maternity consignment and maybe shifting to only maternity boutique brands so that you have a place to resell your maternity investment pieces. 

This is not a new fact, and shouldn’t surprise anyone. I stumbled upon this article from MarieClaire about maternity clothing and felt everything she wrote. And I’d add, when you need maternity clothing it feels like it’s high demand, but the reality is it’s not. And while birth rates are slowly declining, they are remaining fairly steady in our city - maternity sales have never been strong enough to cover the expenses of lease, wages, insurance, and operating a business. 

The only product we’ve carried consistently since 2022 is Hot Milk Bras. They have one of our lowest profit margins, but highest turn over rates. But as you can see from the sales graph, it’s fairly inconsistent on a month to month basis. We can restock this brand easily - but we often here ‘oh, I didn’t know you carried nursing bra’s’ - and for real. When you’re a diverse product shop like us, it’s hard to cover all of your products, let alone focus on products that rarely pay the bills. 

There are many struggles on the retailer side of being a maternity shop - many of them same as exploring Junior/Youth clothing. The thing being there is consistently more kids who need size 12Y, than maternity parents. So we will probably look at continuing to expand our children's clothing for pretweens, and youth. 

Why We're Probably Killing Our Maternity Section (And Why It's Not Your Fault)

Unique Style Preferences 

Walk around the mall and you’ll see dozens of different adult clothing brands serving different niches from loungewear to business, across different budgets. Maternity wear is now just one shop trying to serve these different needs. And now more than ever, people don’t settle for what’s available. They know they can go online and find something closer to their style and preference. 

So as a maternity retailer, I’m hoping that the styles I bring in will align with the customers who walk through the door and with their budget. 

Selling a Full Size Run Takes Too Long

I don’t really know what this concept is in retail, but this is one that is hardest in maternity compared to infant. I struggle with this problem in shoes and youth clothing as well, where there's often one or two sizes you just dn’t have a customer that year. 

Despite a few years of sales data, the pregnant customer is almost always a new customer and likes to be entirely different than your data. You never know what size will walk through the door this year. 

• You spend $50 to buy 5 sizes. 

• You sell 4 of them and earn $80. 

• You only have $30 to pay expenses

• That last item will sell on day…  probably at cost

• It can take almost a full year to sell a size run and pay off the original cost. In maternity, in our community.

Some years every parent is a size Medium, others an XLarge. This also means there's always a size we can’t sell. The other bonus is one of our consistent best sizes is a XXL, and that’s one of the hardest sizes to find in maternity. We brought in plus size maternity jeans, but it’s been three years and we’ve maybe sold two pairs. Sometimes it’s also being told the community wants it and the community doesn’t.

Buying in the US Dollar & Expense of Importing

Nowdays, most maternity wear is available from vendors outside of Canada, and we get the pleasure of buying in the US Dollar. The change over the past four years is really felt throughout our collections. And when we buy products from outside of Canada, we’re subject to an 18% duty rate.

• Wholesale = $40USD or $55CAD

• Freight = $200 for carton, about $8 per item

• Duty = 18%, $10

• Total cost = $73 landed. 

Now I need to pay my lease, employees, and operating costs - that pair of jeans is now $150CAD and that’s a price point many families struggle to understand for a product they consider ‘a small period in time’ - but just because it’s a short time for you, doesn’t mean there’s expenses.

If I want to import products outside of the USA, I have an additional insurance fee. This annual fee usually starts at about $4-500. 

Below is a copy of an import fees bill, I spent about $1400 on nursing bras.

Buying Cheap is Expensive 

Many people think - just buy cheaper things.

But when you do, it’s expensive. 

A bag of cheap maternity leggings that cost me $10 each, likely will have at least one pair that is defective straight out of the bag, and a higher rate of returns. It’s rarely worth it. We’ve tried a few products but product performance sucked so much that we lost money. Additionally, you're still paying high international freight, duty, and fees with associated. For retailers, it can cost more to import a cheap item, then the item itself. Consumers don’t often face these fees when ordering from online shops. 

When you shop at a boutique your expectations are different. You might have let it slide if I was Amazon, but as a local shop that’s not true. Additionally, we find that cheap brands aren’t doing the work to design and shape for women's pregnant bodies so there isn’t always the fit you need. It’s not uncommon to have poor fit, lack of sizing, and just shitty product. Nobody actually wants that. 

Awareness and online competition 

Subtly, you know that maternity is a hard to find niche and don’t even consider it could exist your region, so you don’t look. I feel this to be true for maternity and junior sizes - you just order online without even googling ‘maternity stores near me’  - we rank on google for Maternity Stores in Prince George, BC. And our consignment collection currently has over 500 units. 

Consumer behavior shifted toward "bump-friendly" non-maternity clothes. And we won’t argue with that because being a conscious member of the planet means buying that with intention. According to Business insiders, searches for traditional maternity clothes fell 45% in 2024, including a 30% drop in maternity jeans searches and a 53% drop in maternity dress searches. That’s absolutely wild. 

We haven’t restocked new maternity in over two years because we still have new inventory that we just hear pricing complaints about. 

Cheap online vendors on Amazon don’t have to pay the operational costs of a brick & mortar and can consistently offer products at a lower cost. Shops need to mark up things to pay for our leases and wages. So ya, at the end of the day that online option is just worth it. 

If you want brick & mortar to exist, you have to be okay with paying the costs of brick & mortar to exist. This is most evident in clothing. In other products we generally see pricing the same as online thanks to brands managing market suggested pricing. Clothing doesn’t have a strong MSRP. 

Don’t be surprised when we announce the ned of maternity clothing at Nest & Sprout

Maybe it won't happen, but this week I spent some time marking down items in our maternity consignment collection to move things and better reflect what we know of pricing and sales over the past two years as a maternity consignment boutique in canada. In general, we don't always post maternity online because photographing it sucks. But we do sometimes. 

Regularly, when I look at sales data and the dark dungeon corner of maternity clothing at the shop - I think, it’s really time to say goodbye to this collection. But then a parent comes in and buys it, and gives me the cute little ‘omgosh, I’m so excited I could finally try on maternity clothing’ – and I go, fine let’s delay ending maternity and keep it for a little longer.

And regulalry, when I talk to friends who own businesses - they say, focus on the 80%. And this isn't even the 20%. 

If you want local maternity, go support your local maternity shops. They are closing quickly throughout the country, if they haven’t already.