What Happened to Vitamin Shoppe? 10 Marketing Lessons

What Happened to Vitamin Shoppe? 10 Marketing Lessons

An omnichannel, specialty retailer of nutritional products, The Vitamin Shoppe was for a while one of the success stories as far as retail in the country goes as is discussed by the subject matter experts over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. However, as is the case for GNC, they ran into rough times, closing stores, until they recently announced that they would be acquired by Liberty Tax for about $208 million, a move that saw its shares rise significantly. So, what lessons can we take from what happened to Vitamin Shoppe? This article will look to help by highlighting the following 10 lessons.

The rise of online retail

Brick-and-mortar retail stores like Vitamin Shoppe have suffered as a result of the rise of online retail, particularly the rise of Amazon, a topic that is tackled in detail over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. This has meant that folks looking to buy nutritional products such as vitamins, supplements, and so forth prefer to shop online, due to convenience and also because such products are cheaper online and there is a wider variety to choose from.

The nature of their products has encouraged an increase in digital shelves

The very nature of nutritional products means that you don’t have to physically touch them and “test them out” as you would do clothes or shoes, to buy them. This has meant that nutritional products have become the perfect product to be sold online, as on top of that they also have a very long shelf life, as per discussions on the same over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. This has encouraged online retail of such products, muscling companies like Vitamin Shoppe out.

New kids on the block

As per the gurus over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, wellness has over the last couple of years become one of the most lucrative sectors out there, which has led to the cropping up of new supplement companies. These companies are hip and fresh and are appealing to the younger generations, particularly millennials, through social and Instagram in particular. These companies have taken a huge chunk out of Vitamin Shoppe’s business, and have been another reason behind their decline. An important lesson to take from here is the importance of making sure you don’t get usurped by new players in your industries, and stay ahead of your competition.

Poor branding

Another issue that has affected Vitamin Shoppe has been their poor branding and imagery. Unlike the new companies mentioned above, Vitamin Shoppe doesn’t have high-end packaging when it comes to their products or enticing imagery that is both seductive while also being health-appropriate. This means that its stores aren’t as attractive as that of the new companies, something that contributed to its decline. The marketing lesson we can take here is the importance of making sure you have engaging content and that you are attractive to your audience.

Sterile store atmosphere

One of the things that will make people forego the convenience of shopping online so that they visit your physical store, as per the folks over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, is if you can guarantee them a great shopping experience. The problem with Vitamin Shoppe stores is that they have such a sterile atmosphere, lacking sleek designs and sometimes just being untidy and cluttered. This means that customers were put off and don’t want to shop at Vitamin Shoppe stores, which also contributed to their decline.

They lost touch with modern consumers

Vitamin Shoppe also lost touch with modern consumers, evidenced in the way they package their products, the way they put out their messages and the way their stores are arranged and designed. In short, as covered over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, they just look old, like relics, and this is yet another reason behind their decline, and an important lesson to take from them.

Products seem to only be about gaining muscle and being ripped

A major area where Vitamin Shoppe went wrong is the fact that their products seemed to be all about getting ripped and gaining muscle, and they seemed to cater only for the macho, bodybuilder type. The thing about the wellness industry, as discussed over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, is that there are many people out there who are interested in getting fit, but have no interest in gaining muscle. This also locked them out of the female wellness market, which is one of the biggest sectors of the wellness industry, in yet another error that led to their decline. The lesson we can take from this is that we should try and make sure that our products and services appeal across the spectrum and that no demographic is locked out.

Legal issues

Just like their rival, GNC, Vitamin Shoppe has had to grapple with a series of lawsuits, questioning the effectiveness of their products and if their products are safe to use, in yet another thing that has contributed to their decline. This only served to tarnish their reputations, which is why the gurus over at runrex.com & guttulus.com are adamant that making sure you avoid bad publicity and that you maintain a good reputation is key; another lesson we can take from their plight.

Its business model

While there was a time that stand-alone retail stores selling nutritional products made sense, the growth of online retail, as well as that of superstores and warehouse retailers, means that this is a business model that seems to be unsustainable in the long run, as covered over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. This is yet another reason that may have led to Vitamin Shoppe’s decline, as these other businesses took ma massive chunk out of their customer base, badly impacting on revenue.

Poor marketing of its online offerings

While Vitamin Shoppe decided to branch out to online sales, as a means of adapting to the growth of online retail, it didn’t do a good job marketing their online business. Vitamin Shoppe was pretty weak when marketing on social media, and Instagram in particular, a platform where many new companies in the wellness sector have had great success. This meant it was not attracting as many people as it would have liked to their online business, and as such this side of its business wasn’t as successful as it should have been, also contributing to its decline.

As always, if you are looking for more information on this and other related topics, then you should look no further than the brilliant runrex.com & guttulus.com.