One in three American families has difficulty affording enough diapers, and weirdly, those least able to pay end up paying the most for diapers. In fact, according to some stats, the poorest Americans pay nearly double what the richest Americans pay for diapers.
“That just struck me as bananas,” said Josh Miller, an entrepreneur and former Facebook employee who joined the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy last year as its director of product management.
And so, Miller, backed by the White House and with an assist from Jet.com, is hoping to right this particular wrong.
Jet — whose founder, Marc Lore, got his start in diapers, literally, with Diapers.com — has partnered with Cuties to sell low-cost diapers to nonprofits. Those diapers will then be distributed to low-income families — families that are less likely to access online shopping and the various discounts available that way. Low-income families tend to buy diapers in smaller amounts — a 10-diaper package from a corner store — as opposed to in bulk — 85–120 count boxes online or at a wholesale retailer like Costco.
How to bring down the price? Leave out nonessentials, like graphics on packaging, and add more diapers to each box. Regular consumers can also purchase the economy diapers on Jet.com come April, but nonprofits can apply for discounted pricing.
The cost per diaper will be between $0.10 and $0.18 per unit, depending on size. Theoretically, nonprofits could save more by taking advantage of Jet’s pricing model that rewards larger carts and waiving the return policy.
The National Diaper Bank Network estimates that its 280 network diaper banks will order more than 15 million diapers through this partnership in 2016, the White House said.
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