A major shift from heavy buying to light buying

A key trend captured by the 2016 TABS Analytics Vitamin and Minerals Supplements study is the continued decline in the number of heavy buyers (those who purchased more than three types of vitamins in a year). Heavy-buyer penetration peaked at 40% in 2012, but in 2016, heavy-buyer penetration dropped to 30%.

(Click here to view the full VMS Report.)

“We see a meaningful shift away from heavy buying and toward light buying,” noted Kurt Jetta, president of TABS Analytics. They represent only 7% of the buyers, down from 10% of buyers two years ago, but account for 30% of sales.

The decline in heavy buyers is particularly noticeable among women, which has gone from 45% in 2012 to just 32% in 2016. Despite this drop in heavy buyers, overall purchase incidence among female buyers has increased to an all-time high of 82%, driven by more light buyers.

The 2016 VMS study also found that heavy buying among younger consumers (ages 18 years to 54 years old) has dropped from 25% in 2015 to 21% in 2016. However, consumers 55 years old and older are twice as likely to be heavy buyers (43%).

This large drop in heavy buyers occurred primarily in the mass market channels, which has caused mass market penetration to decline for the past two years, TABS noted. Specialty stores and online stores have held onto their heavy buyer base and also gained light buyers.

This is the first time since 2010 that TABS has tracked a shift in the vitamin market away from mass market and towards specialty brick and mortar. However, mass market is still the most-shopped channel with 65% of buyers shopping in it exclusively, while only 14% of all buyers shop exclusively at non-mass channels (online or in specialty stores).

The study found that 55% of all shopping visits are to Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, online retailers and food stores.

The online retail channel is the top outlet for sales of vitamin, mineral and supplements, hitting $2 billion and surpassing Walmart’s vitamin sales of $1.7 billion in 2016, according to the study.