In this Issue

The retail clinic space represents a fast-growing industry that hasn’t even scratched the surface in terms of its full potential given constant market pressures to make health care more affordable, more accessible and more efficient. In 2016, more than 2,200 locations in the United States generated sales of more than $1.4 billion, a 20.3% increase per year from $518 million in 2010, according to Kalorama Information’s “Retail Clinics 2017: The Game-Changer in Healthcare” report, published earlier this year.

Having a baby changes everything — including shopping behavior, according to new insights from pregnancy and parenting resource BabyCenter, a Johnson & Johnson company. The company’s “2017 Skincare and Bathtime Study,” shared exclusively with Drug Store News, points to lasting changes that new parents undergo in terms of what they look for from their personal care products once they have children, as well as the top factors influencing their buying decisions.

The predominant factor impacting sales of the $158.1 million parasite treatment category is super lice. But how do you treat cases of head lice that can’t be eradicated through the use of traditional pediculicides? And more importantly, for parents it’s how do you eliminate that “super lice” infestation without injuring the host, which just happens to be their children?

Unintentional cuts and piercings account for 6.3% of all non-fatal injuries, according to the latest data from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with more than 2 million accidental cuts occurring each year. Among children ages 19 years and younger, 746-of-every-100,000 kids get an accidental cut or piercing each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With cleansers and moisturizers firing on all cylinders, retailers and brands are fine-tuning other segments to keep the momentum going.

By bringing skin care innovations to mass doors more quickly, chains have been able to keep their customer base from straying to specialty stores and, in some cases, lure them back.

The New General Market is not about demographics — it is a cultural shift and a change in the consumer mindset that has been brought on by the growth of multicultural and millennial consumers and the impact they are having on ALL consumers. It is changing the rules for how brands market. For this virtual roundtable, DSN talked to leading CPG executives about how to better engage the New General Market.

The Vitamin Shoppe for the past year has been steadily redefining the brick-and-mortar experience for natural health shoppers via its latest store prototype, the Brand Defining Store, currently in nine locations with another five to open soon. “We’re always looking for innovative ways to enhance our customer’s wellness journey, and our BDS stores are one of many examples of how we’re increasing consumer engagement and improving the customer experience overall,” Jason Reiser, The Vitamin Shoppe’s COO, told Drug Store News.

Probiotics are one of the better-selling categories within the VMS space, as evidenced by the number of growing probiotic brands on the top 10 mineral supplement brand chart, which is where IRI captures many of the probiotic SKUs. While market-leading mineral supplement brands Nature Made and Nature’s Bounty certainly include probiotics, i-Health’s Culturelle brand is the best-selling pure-play probiotic brand with $123.1 million in sales on 8.9% growth across total U.S. multi-outlets, according to IRI.