In this Issue

Feminine hygiene products, once relegated to back aisles near diapers, are hidden no longer. In fact, the entire category is being treated more like a beauty business than a commodity. Some chains even cross-merchandise feminine wipes or cleansers near beauty aisles.

Once again, millennial shoppers are driving the change. They aren’t afraid to talk about periods or other feminine issues that were once unmentionable. There are blogs about waxing and menstruation, and Refinery 29 Snapchatted about how to empty a menstrual cup.

Adult bath products offering a Zen-like experience are bubbling to the surface in mass stores and helping to perk up sales, along with Epsom salt soaks. Consumers are favoring products with a purpose over simply fragrant bath additives. That explains the 26% climb in volume of Dr. Teal’s, which offers a Pure Epsom Salt Soak, along with body wash and foaming bath. It is the No.1 selling SKU in the bath category.

A slew of at-home spa devices offer drug store retailers the opportunity to build incremental sales — while giving shoppers the chance to pamper themselves privately. Although visits to medical spas are up, not all women can spare the time or money for frequent visits. That’s fueled growth of the do-it-yourself gadget business. Today, chains can sell LED lights to fight acne or wrinkles, or to spur follicle growth — and they can do so even at price tags approaching $100.

It appears oral care brands are borrowing a page from the skin care playbook. To brush up on sales, more oral care brands are mirroring trends that have boosted mass market skin care sales — double-duty toothpastes, a trend toward “premiumization” and building momentum for more naturally positioned offerings.

There is a potential white space opportunity for retail clinics in advancing point-of-care diagnostic offerings on site. In 2015, combined sales of POC tests, clinical chemistry and immunoassay laboratory tests and vaccines to retail clinics reached $240 million, with vaccines accounting for a greater share than POC tests or laboratory tests. This reflects total annual growth of more than 26% per year since 2010, when retail clinics accounted for about $75 million in purchases of these products.

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.

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.