Lalo’s Target launch coincides with the retailer’s quest to grow its baby aisle

“Target was ready for the Lalo brand, and they approached us to join,” said co-founder Michael Wieder. “It wasn’t on our Bingo card for 2025, but it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. We had a retailer that understood our vision, and their vision for where the industry was going matched.”

For Target, Lalo’s entry dovetails with a much broader push to spruce up the baby aisle with the addition of new brands and store layouts. Amanda Nusz, Target’s svp for merchandising, essentials and beauty, said in a press release Thursday that the company is adding more than 2,000 items to its baby assortment. 

“From daily must-haves like diapers to trending items like baby skin care and adorable, affordable gifts to celebrate each baby milestone, we’re supporting families throughout the parenting journey with products that bring joy and convenience to their everyday lives,” Nusz’s statement said. 

Target says about one-fourth of its customers are shopping in the baby category, signaling that the expansion could drive more spending from existing customers. And it’s also part of a larger strategy. Target said earlier this month it will be “reimagining” core categories with growth potential, including home. It’s also planning to broaden the assortment and enhance its in-store experience for gaming, sports and toys.

The move comes at a time when the baby category has a bit of a vacuum in mass retail. Big-box selections can only hold so many models of cribs, mattresses and high chairs, and the closure of Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us before that has left parents turning to e-commerce.

Jen Saxton, founder and CEO at baby service marketplace Tot Squad and children’s product expert, said Target can play a role that stores like Buy Buy Baby once did before it shut down its stores nationwide as part of the Bed, Bath & Beyond bankruptcy in 2023. Brands across the sector have bemoaned the lack of a larger physical brick-and-mortar space for new parent shoppers. Some companies, like Million Dollar Baby, even responded by opening their own showrooms.

“What Target has that Amazon doesn’t have is the in-store experience,” Saxton said. “Having that in-store experience in a curated way is key.”

Room for growth

Saxton said Target has an opportunity to cater to Gen-Z and millennial parents who are intentional shoppers and will want to touch and feel baby gear before buying it. New parents may not know how big a car seat is, for example, and may prefer to see some in person before deciding what to buy. Others may want to look at all the options when setting up a registry.

“They’re buying fewer physical products overall, but they want to know what’s the best thing and what’s safest for their baby,” she said.

A Morning Consult report from April 2024 found about 33% of parents with kids under age 2 are Gen Z, a key marketing demographic. But this demographic is also less likely to say they are considering buying from retail giants like Amazon Prime, Target and Walmart — even as they’re overall more likely to say they like to shop in stores than online.  Gen-Z parents, Morning Consult wrote, “enjoy the brick-and-mortar experience and are less impressed by the convenience of the click-and-deliver retail giants.” 

Registry data also shows Target has room for growth in sales with expectant parents. According to What to Expect’s 2024 registry trends survey, about 42% of expectant parents create a registry at Target. That compares to about 80% who register at Amazon, 35% at Babylist and 20% at Walmart.  

Beyond Lalo, Target’s new assortment includes CPG brands like Amara, which sells organic, kid-friendly snacks like smoothie melts, and Joie, which sells stroller systems. It also includes aloe-enhanced Bumbum diapers and an exclusive breast pump from Frida Mom, a brand that already sells postpartum care products in Target’s baby section. Target’s expansion also includes 200 new items from its owned brands, like a diaper backpack from nursery brand Cloud Island. Good & Gather is launching 14 new baby food and snack items, plus Up&Up is introducing 18 new items like baby sunscreen.

From a brand’s perspective, Saxton said companies like Lalo may get lower margins than they would by staying DTC. But the added sale may be worth it. “We’re seeing so many more DTC brands in retail — not just for sales, but for exposure. It’s a new customer acquisition strategy,” she said. “It’s going to be a lower margin than DTC, but it should hopefully still pay for itself.”

Lalo’s road to Target

Inside Target, Lalo is one of the centerpieces of the new assortment. About 235 stores will have adjacent end caps featuring Lalo’s high chair, bathtub and other mealtime accessories products on display. Additionally, its Paw Patrol-branded meal accessories will launch in around 550 stores.

But getting there required a significant behind-the-scenes lift from the Lalo team. First, ahead of the Target launch, Lalo lowered many of its prices. Lalo’s Wieder said figuring out the unit economics was a big part of taking on a retail partner, as well as figuring out price points that would be accessible for more shoppers. 

Joining retail also meant redesigning all its packaging for retail. Every package, which otherwise would have been shipped directly to the customer after ordering, had to be redesigned to be able to sit on a shelf. It also had to rework its fulfillment strategies to ensure it would reserve the right stock for Target’s distribution centers and its own sales.

But overall, CEO Greg Davidson said it’s been worth the lift to be able to meet Lalo’s goal of growing its customer base while shaping the future of the baby category. Lalo aims to fill a space as a premium brand for parents, he said, and many conversations with Target centered on what the future of the category looks like.

“When you bring a fresh perspective — and not just saying, ‘I want to get my stuff on your shelves,’ regardless of what the category is — that goes a long way with building out that relationship,” he said.