Must Visit: Best Buys 4 Baby

Love to shop? Love a great sale? Who doesn't! It can get a bit much having to shop around for quality baby gear, compare different brands and prices offline and online. The solution? Best Buys 4 Baby - a resourceful website that provides honest reviews a wide range of baby gear, lists great sales Australia wide (make sure you sign up to their newsletter) AND amazing prizes to win. The latest prize up for grabs is IKEA DUKTIG mini kitchen.

You'll see a few of my cool kid's products finds popping up on Best Buys 4 Baby's blog. My editor, baby gear whizz, founding director, Vanessa gives us the low down on BB4B.

1. How'd Best Buys 4 Baby start?
Well, by profession I'm an analyst. Always researching, weighing up the options, finding the best solution, comparing quality with price. When I had my little guy I applied the same principles to my baby shopping; which was extensive.

Sounds a bit boring? Well, at home I've always been interested in design and have collected antiques from my teens. When my little guy was born it gave me an opportunity to venture out to include great vintage and modern design for children.

So, combined, I was always looking for great babies & children's design available on my maternity leave budget. I became known for knowing what the best baby products were to meet different parenting needs and finding them at the most competitive price and/or finding the best service.

Julia, my business partner, was a member of my mothers group. By profession she's in marketing, a skill I don't have and have no desire to learn or apply. One day I put to her my idea of a unique baby product review website and our 3rd child, Best Buys 4 Baby, was conceived.

We are very proud of what we have built with Best Buys, everything you see has been achieved within the Best Buys 4 Baby family. At the time Julia & I went into partnership I could never have anticipated how well Julia's skills in business development would compliment my love and knowledge of baby gear & childrens design.

2. Tell us about the website
Best Buys 4 Baby is an independent online resource for parents buying baby gear. Our aim is to provide parents useful advice on choosing the most suitable baby products for their families. For us, this is a combination of best functional design, best looking design, best price & best service across all family budgets.

What makes us more than a blog or sales site is our unique hands-on product reviews. A lot of work goes into those reviews, every product we review gets put to the test.

Our site consists of 4 main sections, reviews, blog, features (on buying specific types of baby gear) and sales listings. Each section is cross referenced allowing our readers to smoothly transition through all relevant sections when doing their research, checking out their options or just reading for fun.  We like to have fun.

3. What are some of your favourite products on the market right now...
This is a hard question to answer because we cover all aspects baby gear & design and there are so many great products out there.

When it comes to baby gear I'm in love with Mountain Buggy at the moment, we have recently reviewed the urban jungle & terrain. Mountain Buggy have completely changed my mind about big prams because they are so very smooth to push. Not my design ascetic but very very functional and comfortable. The other bit of baby gear I'm loving at the moment is the new BabyBjorn Travel Cot Light. It's such a practical product and, again, so easy to use. I'm all for baby products that make life easy.

On the design front I am currently planning a new room for my little guy.  We've chosen the new STUVA range of furniture from IKEA which I'm quite impressed by, especially the ability to configure it to suit your space.  Also I'm pretty impressed with myself for scoring a Dwell Studio carpet (aqua Gio) which we lugged back from our last trip to New York.  I applied true Best Buys principles and bought it for $100 US at a sample sale.  Saved over $1100! (that never would have been in our budget).

For play time my little guy & I are really enjoying the Momma Modern Playhouse & Family at the moment. We always love making and them playing with our own toys. For Christmas I've chosen Miller Goodman Playshapes as our splurge (they are really for me but don't tell the little guy that!) and a hand made (read non branded) play cape from Monkeytail & Wellington.

4. Where do you get your material from?
Information comes from all over the place. I have my favourite blogs, mainly overseas design blogs where I go bug-eyed over baby & children's products that will never make it to Australia. We have great working relationships with baby gear distributors in Australia and they keep us up to date with whats going on with the major brands. We also like to support small Australian family business (like ourselves) and are often approached by parents, in particular mums, who have designed their own great new baby products.

My favourite way to get information, though, is to attend various baby fairs & tradeshows. There are several main shows in Australia and a few great international shows. I was recently lucky enough to attend the biggest European fair, Kind + Jugend, in Cologne, Germany which was amazing. It's a great opportunity to see all the new innovations and products available around the world.  In January I'm looking forward to attending the Bubbles trade fair in London.

Sourcing and investigating new & innovative baby gear & kids design is my favourite part of Best Buys.