Online Sales of Nutritional Supplements

My own shopping experience


Last December, before I went back to China for the winter break, I got a shopping list from friends. As a convention, they want me to buy all the items on the list and bring them back to China. On this 8 page shopping list, there are some nutritional supplements: Centrum Multivitamin/ Multimineral Supplement, Kirkland Glucosamine Chondroitin, Hyland's C-plus cold tablets, and Nature's Way Sambucus Original Syrup.

My first thought was to buy all the 4 items from CVS or Walgreens, because there are CVS and Walgreens shops in walking distance from where I live. However, it turned out that the task was not so easy to achieve. The 4 items are from different bands, for different functions and are placed on different shelfs. The most frustrating part was, I checked all shelfs in both CVS and Walgreens for a couple of times, but could not find Nature's Way Sambucus Original Syrup. When I finally found the rest 3 items, a few questions came to me: how do I know if there were cheaper sellers? Why don't I check prices on Amazon? I went home without buying any of them.


When I got home I visited the website of CVS and Walgreens and found out that Nature's Way Sambucus Original Syrup was out of stock in both stores. After a few online searching, I bought Centrum from Drugstore, and Kirkland Glucosamine Chondroitin and Hyland's C-plus cold tablets from Amazon. The two online stores offered free shipping for certain amount of purchase.


Pros and cons of online shopping


This shopping experience inspired me to look into the online sales of nutritional supplements. Comparing to traditional supplement retailers, online stores have their advantages. Firstly, search engine enalbes consumers to search product easily. My experience of searching all shefs in physical stores would not happen in the online stores. Secondly, customers can visit different websites at the same time to compare prices. Doing this in physical stores would cost huge amount of time and energy; but doing the same online is just a few mouse clicking. Thirdly, the shiping service saves customers trips, all customers need to do is to make payment with their credit cards and wait for their products to be delivered.
There are also a few obvious disadvantages for online shopping. First of all, customers must alow a few days for shipment. If a customer was in urgent need, he/she probably will go to physical store. Also, shipping fee could stop some customers fron buying online. Online retailers usually offer free shipping for a relatively bigger amount of purchase. Customers who need small amount may go to physical store.
Online supplement retailers and market trends

According to Packaged Facts, GNC and Vitamin Shoppe ranked as top 2 supplement specialty retailer in the United States. Other supplement specialty online retailers include Puritan's Pride, Drugstore,  Mysupplementstore, etc. In addition, the online retailer giant Amazon also attracts large amount of supplement consumers.

Supplement Trend Update

Datas show that the nutritional supplement industry is recession-resistant. It is among the few industries that are not affected by the downturn of the economy. A survey by Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) in 2009 shows that 65% percent of adults reported taking dietary supplements, and 73% of them said that the economy had not affected their supplement purchasing habits.


According to Packaged Facts’ May/June 2010 online consumer poll, 26% of supplement users have purchased vitamin, mineral, or supplement products online in the last 12 months. Packaged Facts also expects annual sales growth in nutritional supplements to increase over the new few years to reach $13.2 billion in 2014. Research from the Nutrition Business Journal shows an average of 7% increase per year between 1999-2008 for the combined nutrition industry direct-sales channels (including internet sales, catalog sales, TV-based sales, sales from multi-level marketers, and others). In 2010, online sales of supplements increased by 13% and reached $1.3 billion in sales. 







 Source: Nutritional Supplements in the U.S., 4th Edition, Packaged Facts (Septemter 2010).

The Use of Social Media by USANA



USANA Health Sciences is a Salt Lake City, Utah based company publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock market. This company is one of America’s leading companies in the field of health and nutrition.

USANA produces nutritional supplements, foods, and personal-care products and sells them through a direct selling network composed of more than 200,000 independent distributors or "associates" and nearly 80,000 "preferred" customers. (Data from Hoovers).

While USANA achieves success continuously in its expansion to Asia/Pacific region, the sales in North America dropped in 2011. To continue to fight the declining sales in North America, part of USANA’s strategy is to increase its brand awareness. USANA is exploiting social media as one of their tools while implementing this strategy.

 
Facebook


USANA  created its facebook page on March 19, 2008, currently it has 52,578 likes. On their facebook pages are photos, videos, events, etc. Content of these posts include media news release, USANA products promotion, corporate events, executive interview, consumer experience, and so on. USANA updates the facebook page very frequently. I started following this company since late last year and I usually see a few USANA posts every day.

Youtube


USANA is also very active on Youtube. The USANA Youtube Channel has reached 1,493 subscribers and 739,277 video views. We can find videos about the exeutive speaches, tips of healthy food, promotion of its corporate social responsibility, etc. The below video is a commercial for USANA 2012 International Convention. USANA is also advertising its international convention on its own website, facebook, twitter, and its blogs. 

Twitter


Similar to its Facebook page, USANA's Twitter page is up-to-date. We see up to tens of daily posts on its Twitter page. Different from that on their Facebook page, the posts on Twitter are more casual, there are employees sharing their professional experiences, and their love to families, etc.


Blog & LinkedIn


Blogs and LinkedIn are also adopted by USANA to increase awareness. SANA has two blog sites, What's Up, USANA? hosts articles from crew members, and Corporate Blog collects blogs from its executive team. The USANA LinkedIn page are attractive for professionals and job seekers, its LinkedIn page has currently attracted 4,607 followers.

Interactive Health Communication (IHC) Applications

Interactive health communication (IHC) can be defined as the interaction of an individual--consumer, patient, caregiver, or professional—with an electronic device or communication technology to access or transmit health information or to receive guidance on a health-related issue.

IHC applications are the operational software programs or modules that interface with the end user rather than the hardware and infrastructure technologies that run or disseminate these applications.

Examples of IHC applications

Health web sites, mobile applications and News groups are all examples of IHC. As the prevalence of smart phones, mobile apps are playing more and more important roles on personalized nutrition communication. The benefits of Interactive Health Communication through mobile apps include:

• Easy access
• Enable usage any time and any place
• Automatic recording of personal data
• Notifications of special events, launches, etc.

Logo of Nutrition Genius

IPhone screenshots of Nutrition Genius

Nutrition Genius

Here is an excellent example of mobile apps being used in personalized nutrition communication. A mobile app named Nutrition Genius is currently available on Apple Store. Nutrition Genius has large in-app food database with over 75,000 unique items, 540+ Restaurant Menus, and 7,000+ common grocery items. PLUS 160+ exercise items with low, normal, and high intensity intervals. Nutrition Genius records user’s calories and food score, tracks weights, and suggests daily calorie intake.

Advantages of IHC applications

Comparing to traditional health communication, IHC applications have its unique advantages.

  1. Delivers personalized health recommendations.

Computer based mass data processing has the capability to store individual health data and customize health recommendations according to customers’ needs, preferences, education level and language.

  2. Improves access to health information, provides broader choices and options   to both professionals and consumers.

  3. Interactive self-assessment tools help individuals to focus on key issues and take   action to improve their health.

  4. Provides a confidential and anonymous environment for health seekers

  5. Reaches large amount of consumers at low costs 

Disadvantages of IHC applications

Just like a coin has two sides, IHC applications have both pros and cons. Major cons of IHC applications are outlined as below.

1. Inaccurate or inappropriate use of IHC applications can result in inappropriate care.
2. Health professionals may perceive IHC technology as a threat to professional autonomy.
3. IHC applications collect personal data, which may raise the risk of personal information abuse.

Resources:

LI Bouwman, GJ Hiddink, MA Koelen, M Korthals, P van’t Veer and C van Woerkum. (2005).

Personalized nutrition communication through ICTapplication: how to overcome the gap between potential effectiveness and reality.

http://www.health.gov/scipich/IHC/IHCdefin.htm IHC Application Checklist

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nutrition-genius-calorie-exercise/id331419853?mt=8 Nutrition Genius - Calorie, Exercise & Weight Tracker

http://phiwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Interactive+Health+Communication Interactive Health Communication