Consumer Shopping Habits for Wellness and Environmentally ...

• Mass has emerged as a choice for many in home cleaning, personal care, vitamins and supplements, OTC, and
general merchandise categories. Overall, mass makes a very strong showing across almost all categories tested
here when compared to other channels.
• Drug is a preferred channel for OTC and some personal care categories.
• Club is a preferred channel for some fairly specific products, including laundry detergent and diapers, where
some consumers prefer to “go big, and cheap.”
u Appeal to H+W consumer orientations varies across channels.
• Drug, mass, and club stores appeal most strongly at the Periphery with some Midlevel appeal, though H+W
strategies moving forward for these channels are somewhat different
• Grocery stores tend to have strong Mid-level appeal, though there is quite a range of appeal across various
grocery banners
• Specialty grocery and drug stores tend to have strong Mid-level appeal as well as some level of Core appeal
u The idea of in-store health services (e.g., flu shots and treatment of minor illnesses) is generally most popular in
drug, mass, and club channels where there is strong Periphery appeal.
u In-store learning activities are most preferred in stores with Mid-level appeal such as grocery and specialty grocery.
Consumers express a preference for learning that is less related to the body directly and more about lifestyle activities
(e.g., cooking demonstrations).
u Sustainability is difficult to approach directly at retail; however, retailers do have several levers to pull to make
positive sustainability impressions in consumers, including positive store aesthetics and carrying a critical mass of
sustainability-friendly SKUs.
u Across many categories (e.g., hair care and OTC), consumers feel strongly that there is too much choice in an overall
sense, suggesting that retailers could help make in-store choices easier through more intuitive organization and
re-rationalizing their SKU mix (i.e. eliminating redundant choices).
u Although food was not a focus of this study, wherever possible in-store, retailers should leverage foods as H+W
goods, fresh foods in particular, wherever possible in-store: Food is the most important H+W product category
across all consumer segments.
u H+W goods and categories should be prioritized in store spaces (e.g., departmental layouts and shelf spaces)
• Consumers have a difficult time locating and comparison shopping H+W categories and products that are segregated
from other same-category goods, and often they do not know those H+W products exist in stores they
frequently shop.
• Where possible, it is helpful to integrate all same-category products to give a full consideration set to shoppers,
avoiding special “wellness” sections that typically place H+W goods in remote sections of stores.
u At-shelf brand blocking is frustrating to many shoppers in several categories: They feel that the practice makes it
difficult for them to compare “apples to apples”.
• Vitamins and supplements are particularly difficult to shop when brand-blocked.
• Cleaning products as well can present difficulties for consumers (“Why aren‘t all the bathroom cleaners
in one place?”).
u Store environment and aesthetics make notable quality and H+W impressions on consumers, with “nicer” store
spaces evoking very strong, positive reactions from consumers participating in this study.
Consumer Shopping Habits Study
The Association for GM and HBW
Connectivity, Education, and Research