Store Strategy

Health and
Wellness:
Retail
Strategies
The $4.2 trillion global wellness industry continues to
influence the consumer economy. Brands are
adapting in-store messaging, IRL events, online
content and product to encourage active lifestyles in
their customers.
Puma
 Analysis
The $4.2 trillion global wellness industry
continues to influence the consumer economy,
extending far beyond the world of health and
fitness. Brands across categories are adopting its
messaging, finding opportunities in events, online
content and products to encourage active
lifestyles.
Branded messaging and activations addressing
mental health are key, with companies from
sportswear powerhouse Puma to streetwear
brand Madhappy participating. Home and
personal care brands are aligning the use of their
products with anxiety mitigation, encouraging
activities such as cooking or gardening.
Some products and experiences are explicitly
designed to aid in the customers’ physical and
mental health journey. Educational tools and
inclusive designs can help to give existing brands
some legitimacy in the wellness community while
inviting in new consumers.
The language of wellness also shows up in
unexpected places, including mall brands better
known for party clothes than healthy lifestyles,
proving no category is off limits when it comes to
aligning with wellness. Sporty & Rich
 Soothing and Relaxing
According to a study from the American Equal Parts, the cookware brand from Pattern,
Psychological Association, Gen Z suffer from the DTC holding company formerly known as
the highest levels of stress and, at 27%, are the Gin Lane, promises prospective Millennial
most likely to rate their mental health as fair or consumers that cooking can be a reliable
poor – compared to 15% of Millennials and 13% means of relaxation and avoiding burnout.
of Gen X. With more young people opening up Cooking just for the sake of it, without any of
about and seeking help for anxiety and the optimisation sold to Millennials by brands Crown Affair
depression, mental health has been top of mind like Blue Apron and Sweetgreen, is the kind of
for brands looking to communicate with this slow, intentional behaviour that can help to
cohort. soothe overloaded shoppers.
Streetwear brands such as Madhappy and “We’re not selling products,” the co-founders
Danielle Guizio have embraced mental health said on the podcast, Future Commerce. “We’re
awareness, with products that normalise selling a way to use your time.”
conversations around the issues. Madhappy’s Dianna Cohen, founder of haircare startup
occassional pop-up events often deal with Crown Affair, suggests the products she has
mood tracking and self-reflection. Proceeds of developed go beyond creating a healthier
Guizio’s limited-edition T-shirt went to the mane. Instead, hair brushing is marketed as a
National Alliance on Mental Illness. calming personal ritual one can incorporate
With branded content and wellness-inspired into their existing at-home wellness routine.
messaging, brands are selling customers on
their products based on the idea it might help to
soothe anxiety to encourage the building of
new, healthier habits.

Danielle Guizio
 Avoiding Size
Shame
Clothing sizes, which are far from standardised
across different brands, markets and regions, are
being justifiably questioned for the sake of both
utility and body acceptance. These strategies look
to replace the anxiety around the number on a tag
with a fit that is both accurate and body positive.
H&M sub-brand Weekday, whose denim ranks
among some of the UK’s best-selling in 2019, is
developing a size-free jean for 2020. Working with
The Laboratory, H&M Group’s innovation group,
Weekday will use an algorithm to create custom
denim patterns from a customer’s 3D body scan.
On top of eliminating size shame and the Weekday

potentially dispiriting experience of trying on

jeans in a fitting room, it will also help reduce
returns.
Companies that were once associated with
weight loss are pivoting to embrace wellness
instead. However, in an increasingly crowded
market, it’s far from a silver bullet when it comes
to appealing to a new generation. The platform
formerly known as Weight Watchers, which
rebranded as WW in 2018, has attempted to shed
its previous identity by wading into the world of Weekday

wellness; it failed to achieve a major lift in profit

for the company.
Weight Watchers
 Supporting
Wellness Goals
Fitness and streetwear influencer Emily Oberg’s
Sporty & Rich label began as a line of minimalist
T-shirts and sweats, supported with an Instagram
feed of aspirational imagery. Now, Oberg is
expanding beyond apparel with Sporty & Rich
Wellness Club, a platform for fitness routines,
beauty and personal care product
recommendations, and mental health tips from
the designer and other experts. “The goal of
Sporty & Rich has always been to become much
Sporty & Rich
more than a clothing brand,” Oberg
wrote on Instagram. “I wanted it to be a platform Sporty & Rich

for better living, healthier habits and a way for

people to enhance their overall quality of life.”
In 2019, Athleta, Gap Inc’s sub-brand dedicated to
women’s athleisure and fitness apparel, launched
a series of events called the Wellness Collective.
The $78 ticketed events are designed to expand
the brand’s focus beyond just fitness to support
its customers’ goals around self-care, meditation
and beauty. While the Wellness Collective concept
builds a valuable experiential element into the
Athleta store experience, this strategy also helps
diversify Athleta’s offering and grow interest in
wellness-adjacent products like crystals, vitamins
and ingestible beauty supplements..

Sporty & Rich

Built-in Education
Apparel brands are using their products to help
educate customers about health and preventative
wellness. This move is particularly salient when it
comes to breast cancer education and awareness
among young people.
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October
2019, California-based lifestyle and sneaker brand
Vans partnered with UK nonprofit CoppaFeel! for
a collection of shoes covered in inclusive breast Boohoo
illustrations. Rather than simply turn the shoes
pink for the cause, the shoes are meant to serve
as an educational tool to encourage self-exams
and early detection.
In another collaboration with CoppaFeel!, fast
fashion brand Boohoo released “Live Saving
Lingerie”, a collection of bras printed with
instructions for women to perform self-exams as
regularly as they take their bras off.

Vans
 Events and Spaces
Brand activations and experiences dedicated to In partnership with mindfulness app Happy
health education, wellness or anxiety mitigation Not Perfect, Saks Fifth Avenue launched The
are designed to appeal to overworked, Happiness Challenge, a pop-up experience
overwhelmed and otherwise burnt-out Millennial where guests could take part in a series of
and Gen Z consumers. exercises dedicated to positive psychology and
meditation.
In London’s Shoreditch, German activewear
Thinx
giant Puma’s Endorphin Store pop-up promoted Onsite health and wellness specialists help
the brand’s new LQD CELL trainer with an take the physical shopping experience to the
experience that connected fitness and physical next level no matter the category. They bring a
activity with mental health and the release of level of service e-commerce can thus far not
endorphins rather than weight loss and burning yet replicate. For example, UK shoe shop chain
calories. FootBalance offers in-store podiatrist and
chiropody consultations at select locations.
Period-proof underwear brand Thinx launched a
Though the services are not complimentary, it
pop-up store and experience called The Rest
makes getting an expert opinion on the health
Room in New York’s Nolita, which ran
value of new purchases easier.
throughout the last months of 2019. Designed
in a spectrum of warm pink and red tones, the
setting was designed to act as a safe space for
menstruating shoppers of all kinds to relax,
shop and discuss periods and related topics.

Saks Fifth Avenue

 Pivoting to Wellness
For retailers like Walmart or pharmacy chain Even financial services companies are
CVS, the embrace of wellness and rollout of in- adopting the language of wellness. Wealth
store health experiences feels like a natural management firm HighTower rebranded with
extension of their existing business. Other a “holistic financial wellness” concept,
businesses are turning to the world of wellness encouraging customers to embrace wellness –
to help reach younger consumers and or “well-th, rebalanced” as they call it – in all
potentially create new revenue streams. Now, aspects of their lives. Ben & Jerry's
even retailers like Best Buy, for example, are One of the trendiest ingredients across
getting into the wellness economy, doubling categories from food to beauty, CBD has
down on health tech and digital health services. arguably come to represent the crossover
Express, the mall brand known for jeans and of wellness and cannabis cultures.
party clothes, is making a surprising move with Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont-based ice cream
the launch of UpWest, a spin-off brand that brand known for hippy-inspired flavours like
embraces wellness culture and athleisure. Phish Food and Cherry Garcia, is aligning its
Hoping to boost lagging sales and recapture indisputably non-health food product with
some of its Millennium-era trend appeal and wellness via the development of a new CBD
relevance, Express is betting on e-commerce variation. Though not yet available for the
and a Goop-inspired assortment of products, mass market, it represents wellness-adjacent
from cosy slippers to jade rollers and CBD ingredients and concepts showing up in the
cream. unlikeliest of places.

UpWest
 Action Points
• Brands across categories can incorporate
wellness into their businesses by putting the
health of their customers first and looking for
ways to enable healthier habits.
• Encourage customers to engage with products
thoughtfully and intentionally, incorporating them
into daily self-care rituals.
• Experiences and activations that embrace
comfort, relaxation and stress management,
rather than excitement and social media, tap into
a new slow-living, digital detox mindset.
• Jumping into the wellness economy isn’t a
magic solution to keeping up with consumer
preferences. Efforts should be authentic and
meaningful; just expanding offerings to include
things like CBD products is not enough to
differentiate to a consumer inundated with similar
options.

Well & Good

 Related Reports
Vegan Performance: Active Focus Millennials: Emerging Wellness Tribes Gen Z: Emerging Wellness Tribes

Selling Sex: US Strategies for Closing the Relationships Redefined: New Routes to
Pleasure Gap Intimacy Men's Wellness Trends 2020

Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)