Consumer Shopping Habits for Wellness and Environmentally ...

Critical Issues in H+W Retail
Below we discuss several important general issues that impact H+W retail. Most of them are
discussed in more detail further into this chapter.
Accommodating Growth
As we have mentioned elsewhere, H+W consumers evolve. It‘s very important to keep that evolution
in mind when constructing H+W retail strategies; it‘s not good enough to think about your consumers
and their preferences as they exist today. You must be thinking about where they are going, and
accommodating the ―next steps‖ they will make as they grow. We have seen many consumers
change their channel usage as they have evolved, often moving away from more traditional retail
channels and toward specialty channels, in some categories much more so than others. Providing
new options for them is critical for retention, as is providing a retail space that is arranged intuitively
for shopping with H+W in mind. As the old saying goes, ―if you don‘t sell it to them, someone else
will.‖ Retailers should prioritize accommodating consumer growth through store space and layout as
well as SKU variety
Shift from Crisis to Lifestyle Emphasis
There is notable contrast between the clinical and crisis-oriented version of H+W that we see in
Periphery consumers and the more positive, holistic sense of H+W that we see at the Mid-level and
Core of the H+W World. (See the previous chapter on H+W consumers for more detail.) This
contrast impacts how consumers perceive retail spaces. Today many retailers are either providing or
considering providing some level of health services in-store, and that may hold some appeal to
consumers in the Periphery. However, at the same time, overtly clinical services may be distinctly
unappealing to more evolved H+W consumers in some retail contexts. In an obvious sense, no one
wants ―flu shots by the salad greens,‖ but often this contrast comes out in more subtle ways, and
may be dealt with through various manipulations of space and store content.
Leveraging Food
While this study and report is largely concerned with non-food products (general merchandise, OTC,
et cetera), there is no denying the importance of food to the wellness consumer. It is typically the first
focus of the budding H+W consumer, and remains a key focus as that consumer evolves to more
intensive involvement with H+W. Not surprisingly, in interviewing consumers for this project, a key
challenge was to keep them from talking too much about food, and get them to concentrate on other
categories of H+W goods.
The business implications here are simple. Tactics such as the following typically meet with success
in elevating H+W impressions in retail space:
Leveraging ―fresh.‖ Step one in any H+W campaign should be to make sure that fresh
departments are of extremely high quality and show a very high standard of care (e.g. avoid
produce bins that look picked-through).
In the absence of fresh departments, leveraging high quality packaged foods and/or
beverages. (Highly visible locations are very helpful e.g. place healthy fruit smoothie drinks
in a cooler near the front of the store rather than in an obscure case at the back of the
store.)
Reducing the visibility of ―junk food‖ wherever possible/practical.
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