Why it’s time to revisit your glove business.
By Paul Girouard
Have you been asked if you are a “glass half full or half empty person?” I am a glass half full person when talking about the glove category. I know it’s easy to groan and get caught up in all the complexity and moving parts from the past few years, but I see opportunity and would like to present my case.
When you look at the infection prevention category and what products might fit into it, gloves would be the largest component. The market potential in units is an estimated 48 billion gloves per year for healthcare. If you were to pull them out of infection prevention and they were their own category, they would be ranked the fourth largest in the physician market segment, and second in the long-term care segment.
Put on a pair of exam gloves and wear them as long as you can. Then remove them and repeat. Spend some time doing this again and again. Now you will experience what clinicians do throughout their entire career. You can understand quickly that they know what is comfortable, and what they trust with their personal safety. We see gloves from a business and logistical perspective, but we forget that this might be one of the most highly emotional and personal product categories there is. Customers don’t like change; they don’t want to switch gloves unless there is good reason. They are loyal to their brands.
Educated the hard way
Over the last three years the market was tight, then flooded. Product costs skyrocketed, then plummeted. Pricing has now leveled off and is slightly higher than pre-pandemic rates. Besides supply and demand issues, freight has impacted cost and those issues lasted well beyond the pandemic. During this time facilities used what was available, choice and preference weren’t options. End-users were compliant with hand hygiene and glove use and double gloving became common practice.
So here’s the opportunity. Just like you are revisiting the glove category, your customers are as well. End-users had to wear gloves that were available through some pretty tough times. They saw what bad looked like and they were educated the hard way on what is important when making the right glove choices.
Use this as your time to revisit the category and pivot to what customers are looking for, not what they had used in the past. Ease their pain points. Take time to review your glove business. What might have gone away, or what accounts never bought but might be an opportunity. Work with your glove manufacturers to sample where necessary. Clinicians need to see, feel, try-on and feel comfortable with the glove.
This is the time to be an educated resource to your customers for an important category.
Wash your hands.
Sidebar:
Important factors
What is important to end-users when making the right glove choices? The following are important things they will consider:
- Glove materials – Nitrile has become the material of choice in healthcare.
- Glove characteristics – Gloves have become thinner, softer, and more comfortable to wear.
- Country of Origin – Manufacturers have moved production. There was a shift from Malaysia to China, Thailand, and the United States.
- Logistics – Service levels and visibility to inventory is now extremely important.
- Sustainability – The company and its ability to support the brand with sales support, clinical support, and marketing.