Lupin 2024

The wellness category needs to induce less stress

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On December 6, 2019, WSL hosted a symposium on the “Big Business of WELL.” An extraordinary group of speakers joined us on stage to discuss the fast-growing wellness business. Retailers from CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, Walmart, Nordstrom and Zappos spoke about how they were adding new products and services, building more “human” stores, and were focused on building happier and more inclusive organizations. A leading neurologist talked about how to create a calm brain in stressful times.

Wendy Liebmann

Wendy Liebmann

We set the stage with this comment, “People’s expectations are that every product and service will help them be well.” This was based on our newly published research conducted in the U.S., South Korea and Europe. That was as true when we said it three months prior to the “official” outbreak of the global COVID pandemic as it is today.

Over these last years, retailers and brands have responded enthusiastically to the shoppers’ preference for more wellness in their everyday products, with healthier options in everything from food and beverages to personal care, beauty, health, home, fashion, technology, travel and more. And there’s the rub. As more and more products have emerged to support a healthy, well life, stores, websites and social media have become stressful and time consuming to shop. This is especially so in the U.S., as aisles are now filled with overwhelming choices, often with competing wellness promises on every shelf.

Managing shoppability when the aisles become too much

Retail’s WELL-care inroads have expanded selection of healthy ingredients but have made the choices more complicated.

Take bottled water. Today, bottled waters come with added vitamins, electrolytes, energy, collagen and melatonin. In some ways, water is starting to look like vitamins. How is a shopper supposed to choose what’s best? If you ask them, as we do, their mood quickly goes from well intended to ­exasperation.

Nearly all product categories have introduced wellness benefits. Consider how some categories now look.

  • Nonalcoholic beverages. This market, with revenue of $445 billion in the U.S., according to Statista, is expected to grow by nearly 5% a year. No surprise: When you walk the aisle in any store, there are zero-sugar beverages, real-juice waters, healthy sodas, gut-healthy soft drinks infused with prebiotics, probiotics or plant fiber, and nonalcoholic beer for those who feel it is healthier to abstain. The conundrum for shoppers is that other choices don’t go away; more are added, and often at premium prices.
  • Snack bars. From breakfast to performance bars, choices include brain-boosting nutrients, women’s health, kids’ health, gluten-free, vegan, high carb, low calorie, keto. The snack bar market generated $6.5 billion in U.S. sales in 2021, and it is projected to grow by 2% a year.
  • Vitamins and supplements. In 2021, U.S. sales rose by more than 11% over 2022, exceeding $9 billion. The features are growing as well, with aids for muscle recovery, sleep, hair thickness, fruit and vegetable nutrition, keto diets, organic preferences and more.
  • Yogurt. Thanks to the addition of nondairy nuts, oats, soy and coconut, the yogurt case is bursting. The category exceeded $7.2 billion in sales in the U.S. in 2021, and it is expected to exceed $100 billion globally in 2022.

And those are only four such categories mass retailers carry every day. It makes your head spin. Definitely not what the doctor — or shopper — ordered! So now what?

5 steps for reducing stress-inducing clutter

The future of the wellness industry depends on how effectively retailers and brands can provide an all-encompassing, relevant yet not overwhelming selection and give shoppers the right information to choose.

Here are guidelines based on our latest shopper research.

  1. Make the category easier to navigate. In the store or online, it is key that signage designates different subsegments, such as low sugar, gut-healthy, with or without alcohol, or healthy options for people with conditions. Explaining why products are healthier can further demystify why shoppers should pay a premium for kombucha, coconut water or pressed juice. The beauty category provides a good reference for separating clean/free-from products from others.
  2. Talk through the packaging. Brands can delineate their variety of wellness attributes in the package design, through simple — not convoluted — names, by color-coding or images and icons that communicate the benefits, such as better sleep, more energy or improved immune system. The key is creating visual cues that underscore the product’s health promise.
  3. Stock wellness in unexpected places. Some consciously well being-focused shoppers may never enter the carbonated beverage aisle but would buy a fruit-infused sparkling water if they knew it was available. Displays at checkout, online order pickup areas or the pharmacy/in-store health clinic make for easier discovery of wellness solutions.
  4. Build wellness for online shoppers. The same elements of education that apply to the aisle can be extended online through organized presentation, such as an easy-to-follow grid. Wellness-direct subscriptions also help establish repeat-purchase patterns.
  5. And of course, there is the “less is more” approach. Shoppers give credit to retailers they trust who curate selection for them. Access to AI and big data now allow us to identify, to personalize the right product for the right shopper, right now. No need for every brand, every size, everywhere.

At its pace of growth, the wellness category will likely expand from a predicted $170 billion in U.S. sales in 2022 to more than $200 billion by the end of 2023. History supports that shoppers will pay more for healthier choices, but don’t expect them to pay the price of overwhelming confusion. Retailers and brands — you must sort that out. Or lose one of the biggest business opportunities of this decade.

Wendy Liebmann is the chief executive officer of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York-based, global consultancy that helps manufacturers and retailers build shopper-centric retail strategy. She can be reached at [email protected].


ECRM_06-01-22


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