The vitamin and dietary supplements industry was valued at 140.3 billion dollars in 2020, and is expected to continue growing steadily. In the US alone, 78 percent of adults older than 55 take vitamin supplements, and as many as 70 percent of adults ages 18 to 34 do as well. Suffice to say, the vitamin and supplements industry has never been healthier.
But today’s consumers expect more than over-the-counter household vitamins. According to Founder and CEO of Persona Nutrition, Jason Brown, a “dramatic shift in supplement retailing is occurring,” where “consumers want more than the cookie-cutter supplements found on retail shelves. They want personalized recommendations unique to their bodies, delivered conveniently to their doorsteps every 28 days.”
Between letter vitamins, herbal supplements, multivitamins, and the many other nutraceutical offerings on the market, finding the best balance that is right to drive personal optimal health, and then remembering when to take each, and to refill them on time can be challenging. That’s where vitamin subscription services come in. A perfect fit for the subscriptions model, “subscriptions eliminate the need for an additional shopping trip, either digital or in person, by providing consistent supply,” said Lisa C. Buono, IRI.
Given the rise of the health and wellness subscriptions industry, there have never been more options for health conscious consumers to choose from. So how does a vitamin and supplement retailer differentiate themselves from the competition? Having a robust word-of-mouth program or a strong social media presence can get prospective customers in the door, but when it comes down to true checkout conversion, optimizing customer value, and building lasting relationships, vitamin subscription, digital experience is everything.
Let’s look at six vitamin and supplement subscription brands with remarkable digital experiences—from onboarding to checkout—with key takeaways any health and wellness subscription can capitalize on.
Care/Of
“You know your body, we know the science. Let’s work together” reads Care/Of’s value proposition on their homepage, followed by a prompt to take their quiz. This brand provides customers with personalized vitamin packs based on the answers they provide in short but thoughtful onboarding quiz. Questions about diet, allergies, preferences, and even morals and beliefs go into the curation of their vitamin pack. They are then able to pick and choose additional vitamins they would like to add to their custom vitamin subscription.
During the checkout phase, a 50% off offer pops up also reminding the customer of a free shipping offer to incentivize them to add one or two more vitamins to their pack. A pleasant onboarding experience, generous promotions that don’t feel overly pushy, and a wide assortment of vitamins to choose from make Care/Of a great offering for vitamin subscriptions.
Type of subscription model: Build-a-box: This allows customers to build a custom box of vitamins that’s delivered in regular intervals; Convertible subscription: With this approach the first month is 50% off then automatically converts into full price.
Key takeaway: The Build-a-Box subscription model provides a fun and flexible interactive experience for customers who want more control over their order. As a brand it allows you to see which products are most popularly chosen, while keeping your subscription fresh and replenished with new products, promotions, and offerings.
Naked Nutrition
Naked Nutrition say they have nothing to hide when it comes to nutrition. Their supplements are created with premium ingredients, without additives, to support customers’ health and fitness goals.
This is one health and wellness subscription where the branding really shines.
Customers can either browse from an assortment of proteins, powders, and supplements, or jump into a short three minute quiz to find out Naked’s recommendation to help them achieve their goals.
Type of subscription model: Recurring Products: The simplest of the 7 subscription models to master recurring products, recurring products emphasizes the value in subscribing over making one-time purchases, for more recurring revenue over time.
Key takeaway: When it comes to picking and choosing supplements, user interface is huge. Naked does a great job of allowing customers to easily select one-time purchase items next to subscribe and save items, all flowing into one seamless checkout experience. See below:
Vitally
A strong onboarding experience is great for building customer loyalty and trust, and offering a personalized experience, but it’s also an integral part of long-term lead nurturing — or, the process of gathering data and forming a meaningful relationship with the customer at every stage of the sales journey.
Not every customer who takes a quiz, subscribes to a mailing list, or even adds products to their cart is going to complete their purchase. A good onboarding experience is as much about offering a personalized experience as it is about gathering valuable customer information that can be used to target them later.
Health personalization experts Vitally don’t waste time getting customers into their onboarding quiz, where they ask the customer questions like their name, birthdate, email address, as well as health information like allergies, dietary preferences, and nutritional restrictions.
Type of subscription model: Build-a-box: Customers can either go ahead with the recommendation given by Vitally’s in-house experts, or curate the exact kind of vitamin box they want. The choice is truly theirs!
Key takeaway: Small personalization details like allowing customers to customize the design and presentation of their vitamin box can have a meaningful
Nurish by Nature Made
This well-established health and wellness brand offers personalized vitamin and supplement packs tailored to “fit your life.” Customers start by filling out a more in-depth than usual onboarding questionnaire that goes into creating their personalized vitamin subscription
After completing their quiz, customers are presented with a vitamin pack tailored to the health and nutritional information they submitted. At this point they can easily add or remove vitamins before heading to checkout.
Nourish by Nature Made us incentivizing offers like “free shipping” and “30% off first three months” with a discount code to try and increase the order size and encourage a subscription instead of a one-time purchase.
Type of subscription model: Convertible subscription: Customers are eased into their subscription with three months at reduced price.
Key takeaway: By offering a significant discount for three months, customers are given ample time to try the product and grow attached to its benefits. Offering a longer-term convertible subscription reduces the likelihood of a customer cancelling after the first month.
Nutri-Rich
This family owned and operated vitamin and supplements subscription brand will appeal to shoppers who want to cut the crap—out of both their diets and their shopping experience.
“Vitamins can be sketchy,” Nutri-Rich candidly admit, owning the vitamin-skeptics corner of the market with a promise of transparency, honest sourcing, and third-party testing.
They also aren’t afraid to get right to the product. Instead of making shoppers fill out an onboarding questionnaire to generate recommendations, products are featured directly on the home page. This appeals to customers who want to start by browsing and may not be ready to give their personal information yet.
Subscription type: Recurring Products: build predictable revenue into your business by incentivizing customers to subscribe instead of making one-time purchases.
Key takeaway: The most effective way to let people know that subscribing is an option is to build it right into the product page, either in a custom widget, or right into the dropdown menu under quantity. Nutri-Rich uses Bold Subscriptions to add this valuable feature into each product listing.
Learn how Nutri-Rich is disrupting the traditional vitamin and supplement industry.
Viome
This biology-backed supplements brand takes the guesswork out of nutrition with personalized food and made-to-order supplements. Viome goes one step further than the typical health and wellness onboarding quiz, analyzing customers’ biology through samples and using gene expression analysis and a powerful AI engine to determine the supplements you need.
Customers can either subscribe to an annual plan, or just start by taking a test to see their results and recommendations.
Subscription type: Curated box: Curated subscriptions offer carefully sourced items curated for the customer. This means they don’t necessarily know what exact products they are getting until they arrive; Access exclusive: Customers are given access to specific perks with their subscription like Viome’s own app and food recommendations guide.
Key takeaway: When trying to differentiate a health and wellness brand, it’s important to find ways to stand out from the competition. Viome does so by offering an all-in approach to supplements with a personalized product backed by real biology. The moral of the story here: don’t be afraid to take personalization and curation a step further than the competition.
Want more insights into the world of health and wellness subscriptions?
Our health and wellness subscriptions guidebook is packed full of tips, resources, and use cases to help come up with the right personalization strategy for your brand.
Download Future-fit ecommerce: A complete guide to growing health and wellness subscriptions in 2021.
