It didn’t take long after the onset of COVID to see that even while many economic sectors were collapsing on-site, there were several for which a stay-at-home mandate would be a boon. One such category was — and still is — wellness.
Anecdotally, our newsfeeds are flooded with #selfcare, and Instagram boasts more than 50 million usages of that hashtag alone; 49 million have used #wellness.
And while the wellness space can feel a bit nebulous in terms of what it includes or doesn’t include, it’s hard to ignore the data that supports its growth.
In April 2020, Bloomberg released findings that showed “Companies selling food, medical care items and wellness items like supplements, vitamins and CBD have seen a 21.6% boost since the lockdown began, according to a recent study conducted by Yotpo, an eCommerce Marketing Platform, who polled 2,000 consumers between the ages of 14-73 about how their shopping habits have changed during the pandemic.”
Later last year, eMarketer issued revised projections that showed a $19.22 billion increase in sales in the wellness space, with another $39.56 billion projected to flow in through 2025.
So what’s driving the demand and shaping its growth? It’s our devices (mobile, tablet and desktop).
And while we as an agency are focused on e-commerce sales, we’d be disingenuous to ignore the following, because it has implications for our clients too (and read to the end to get our key takeaways for e-commerce brands) —
1. A surge in tele-health options for physical and mental care.
“According to the American Psychological Association, the number of mental health-related self-applications is currently between 10,000 and 20,000. This increase in number has been a cause of worry for most psychologists. However, it was observed that mobile mental health support is encouraging individuals to seek professional help instead of replacing it.”
Such a trend has eased the barriers to care that may have previously kept some on the outside looking in. And while it’s conjecture on our part, it reasons to believe that the easing of access to virtual mental health treatments has brought along physical products — and experiences too.
2. A surge in wellness tourism.
The wellness tourism market is projected to reach $919 billion by 2022 with leading brands like Equinox launching getaway concepts and collaborations promoted through digital. We often think of e-commerce in terms of physical products, but digital has long been the gateway to the physical world too. The Global Wellness Institute reports that “wellness tourism is the powerful intersection of two large and growing industries: the $2.6 trillion tourism industry and the $4.2 trillion wellness industry.”
As you can see above, different states and countries have even become destinations for specific niches within the broader category, with everything from meditation and yoga to hot springs, hiking and rainforest spa retreats.
Emerging brands have found opportunity by connecting their customers’ previously adjacent interests into one. Club Med was an innovator in this space as far back as 1950, and while they were the Kleenex brand of the space for decades, this novelty has only recently become mainstream.
For established brands, they get customers to push the ‘book’ button by making the traditional hotel stay more ‘sticky’ with wellness offerings.
Case in point — Westin Hotels partnered with fitness-tech brand Peloton, Fairmont with Reebok and Technogym. Hyatt acquired boutique fitness and wellness brand Exhale. There are others.
Most of the fitness brands that hotels are partnering with have a heavy digital connection and extension baked-in. Instead of monetization through digital-only offerings, these collaborations instead create a fervent hybrid community.
It draws non-hotel brand loyalists into specific hotel brands, and allows wellness brands to maintain loyalty by placing products and experiences in places where their customers normally would go without them.
3. Food and supplementation — and personalization.
Nutritional supplements — protein powders, amino acids, pre-workouts, etc. — are widening their appeal and always seem ubiquitous in our social media feeds. The major brands long ago penetrated big box retail and convenience stores from Walmart and Target to CVS and Walgreens, which was a bold step out of the hardcore fitness shelves of GNC and The Vitamin Shoppe.
But that’s old news now.
The new(er) news is that protein powder makers are developing products targeting women and vegan exercisers specifically, for instance, instead of the traditional body-building market of yesteryear. Niche is now mainstream with the assumption of many — right or wrong — that if it’s for everyone, it can’t be for me.
No emerging brand has perhaps captured that idea more intentionally than Gainful.
They’re a DTC e-commerce brand that puts its shoppers through a comprehensive personal assessment quiz to not only learn their current stats — height, weight, fitness level — but also their health goals and lifestyle.
The output of this experience is, at a minimum, the perception of a perfect fit. And while much of the general consumer public is still unclear on what proper supplementation even looks like, Gainful tackles it head-on, and even boasts a team of nutritional and exercise scientists.
So what?
We’ll try to summarize our key takeaways for you, our e-commerce friends, as succinctly as possible.
Take your wellness product/experience to mobile. This doesn’t mean putting a bunch of content on your website; you should’ve done that 10 years ago. Instead, use mobile as a means to do what your customers need most. The surge in tele-health is having implications for wellness brands too. Peloton showed there was an appetite for it in a non-medical environment. Get specific in understanding — or even surveying — your customers to learn how you can meet them on mobile. Virtual experiences, chats with a professional, classes, coaching, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg.
Look at collaborations/partnerships that add customer value and expose you to new audiences. If you know your brand and its customers intimately, an exercise in auditing other brands might be both straightforward and revealing. But don’t collaborate for collaboration’s sake. Be specific in finding an opportunity to create an experience or a product that neither partner can offer on its own, then dive in.
Personalization, personalization, personalization. We talked about this at length on our last blog for the skincare industry, but personalization wins when it’s done right. Users aren’t going backward on this, either. The brands that meet their individual needs and can do it satisfactorily through automation or quizzes are not only gaining a leg-up on competitors, but they’re doing it efficiently and getting obsessive loyalty in return.
Tips of your own? Leave them here. And as always, thanks for reading.
-DB