Closing the Diaper Gap

How Jet.com, The White House and Cuties came together to distribute diapers to families in need.

Imagine having to choose between buying diapers and other essentials like food. It’s an impossible choice, but it’s one that millions of Americans face every day — and families are suffering as a result. Parents either reuse old diapers or simply change them far less frequently than they should, exposing their children to both short- and long-term health risks. And because childcare programs often require parents to provide a day’s supply of clean diapers, parents who can’t afford to do so have to stay home with their children instead of going to work or to school, leading to fewer opportunities for advancement and increased stress.

At Jet.com, we’re relentlessly focused on finding cost-effective ways to connect people to the products that power their everyday lives. So when The White House called on us last October to explore how we might be able to address this widespread problem, we felt a deep sense of responsibility to jump in and help find a solution.

This is how we attacked the diaper gap.

Understanding the issue

A year’s supply of diapers costs roughly $1,000, which means that families earning minimum wage spend about 6% of their income on diapers. But the poorest 20% of Americans — who earn just north of $11,000 per year — can spend as much as 14% of their income on diapers. These families are often unable to travel to big-box stores or compare prices and shop online, which means they have no choice but to pay high prices for small packs of diapers at neighborhood stores. Those prices — plus the fact that food stamps can’t be used on diapers — mean that one in three American families can’t afford a steady supply of the diapers they need.*

Setting a price threshold

From the beginning, our goal was to meaningfully lower the cost of diapers. We knew that diapers cost around $0.33 each nationwide on average, and that parents who shop at neighborhood stores can pay as much as $0.50 per diaper.* We also knew that the largest diaper banks are able to purchase diapers by the truckload for around $0.17 per diaper. So in order to develop diapers that would be compelling, our first objective was to beat a $0.17 price. Not only would this help us get more diapers to families through existing distribution channels, but it would bring the advantages of scale down to the single-pack level, enabling even the smallest community nonprofit to access best-in-market pricing.

Adding program guardrails

At the same time, we also set some guardrails for the initiative. We didn’t want to make any sacrifices in the quality of the diapers themselves to cut costs. We simply wanted to deliver the same quality diapers available to everyone — just in a more efficient way. Furthermore, we didn’t want to approach this as a one-time promotion. We were determined to create a sustainable and scalable solution.

Finding cost advantages

Jet is built to expose and optimize the economics underlying e-commerce, stripping out embedded costs to bring prices down and save people money. And the savings methods available to our shoppers — such as ordering multiple items together to bring shipping costs down, paying with debit instead of credit to cut out credit card fees, and waiving free returns to eliminate hidden restocking fees — would be the starting point for bringing down the price of diapers. But we wanted to go beyond this, and we knew the cost advantages would grow exponentially if we had the right manufacturing partner.

Partnering with Cuties

First Quality, the maker of Cuties-brand diapers, is a leading manufacturer of affordable, high-performing family care products. The company had already been selling its diapers on Jet since just after our launch last year. So when we asked if they would be interested in joining us to explore how we could lower the cost of diapers together even further, they were thrilled to take on the challenge.

Cuties quickly pulled internal stakeholders together — from finance to production to marketing — to think creatively about how to bring down the cost of their diapers without compromising on quality. Their innovative thinking gave us several levers we could pull to create a more affordable diaper pack. To start, we redesigned the packaging, removing expensive graphics from the outer box and inner sleeves to save on costs. We then created a larger package that could fit more diapers per box, spreading out fixed costs in order to bring prices down further. Finally, with help from the National Diaper Bank Network to forecast potential demand from its member diaper banks, Jet saved on shipping costs by ordering the diapers in larger-than-usual quantities.

Introducing the Community Diaper Program

The end result of this joint effort was the creation of a Jet-exclusive Cuties Economy Plus Pack, which will be available to everyone on Jet.com in late April at our initial average price per diaper target of $0.17. Any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, though, will be able to enroll in the Community Diaper Program and purchase these diaper packs at an even lower average cost of $0.13 per diaper — a price that beat our initial price target by 25%.** There is no requirement that enrolled nonprofits need to have distributed diapers before. Our hope is that all kinds of community organizations — soup kitchens, youth organizations, and others — will join us and start distributing diapers in the communities they already serve.

Taking action

It has been a tremendous honor for Jet to work alongside the White House, Cuties, and the National Diaper Bank Network over these last few months — but this is only the beginning. This week, The President will speak at the SXSW Interactive Festival, calling on Americans to find ways to apply new modes of thinking and innovative technologies to solve some of our country’s most pressing challenges. We’re committed to continuing our work of finding innovative ways to deliver savings advantages to those who need them most. And we hope you’ll join us on this first step as we work together to help close the #DiaperGap.

Nonprofits: Sign up to distribute diapers at jet.com/JetCares.

Donate to a local diaper bank through Jet’s campaign for the National Diaper Bank Network here.

Spread the word on social media with the hashtag #DiaperGap.

Some notes:

* Data around household spend and cost per diaper comes from the PEDIATRICS journal, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and conversations with diaper banks.

**The average price per diaper of the Cuties Economy Plus Packs on Jet is calculated based on an average across all pack sizes NB — Size 6. Prices are before additional savings available on Jet such as buying more together, waiving returns, and selecting a lower cost payment method. All prices are subject to change.