Bricks beat clicks: Retailers steal online share

Walmart, Costco and Rite Aid are three retailers driving significant traction in vitamin, mineral and supplement sales, TABS Group reported in May, helping to take share away from such online retailers as Amazon, which captures 36% of all online vitamin traffic, even as sales overall were up 3% to $11.8 billion. These three mass market leaders combined for $3.4 billion in vitamin sales representing 29% of all vitamin sales, according to TABS Group. Mass market has recaptured lost share from 2014 due to the surge in light buyer penetration, TABS Group noted.



Online vitamin sales hit $1.9 billion in 2014, surpassing Walmart’s sales of $1.7 billion, TABS Group reported. “All online outlets saw declines, with the primary cause being the drop in sales among heavy buyers. Amazon’s decline in share was much less pronounced since it draws a disproportionate amount of its sales from light buyers,” said Kurt Jetta, president of TABS Group. “Given that vitamins is among the most highly developed online categories in the consumer packaged goods industry, this study adds an important data point that suggests online sales in CPG have peaked with the existing online shopping technology.”



Within overall VMS, sports nutrition continues to be a booming business representing $2.6 billion in sales. The TABS Group survey found that 37% of adults 18 years and older have purchased sports nutrition products in the last year. “The results from the survey highlight that sports nutrition is a category deserving of more space and support in mass market outlets,” Jetta said. “With half of all sales already occurring there, that number has considerable upside, particularly given retailers focus on millennials.”



The sports nutrition category has 50% more men heavy buyers than women heavy buyers, and Hispanics are two times more likely to be heavy buyers than non-Hispanics. Among adults in the core 18 years to 44 years age group, 74% of Hispanics have purchased a sports nutrition product in the last year compared with 50% of non-Hispanics.



The TABS Group Vitamin and Sports Nutrition study of 1,015 U.S. consumers was conducted in April.