Personalizing Vitamin Subscriptions For Better Self-Care

With the wellness industry worth $4.2 trillion in one recent count, innovators are tapping into the subscription business model to offer products and services aimed at keeping consumers in good shape (and good spirits).

The Vitamin Shoppe, for instance, recently rolled out Only Me, a personalized online assessment that offers a custom assortment of vitamins and supplements to subscribers each month. Only Me uses a detailed questionnaire covering daily routines as well as current health status to make a wellness plan. With the completion of an assessment, the retailer said customers could “expect a uniquely sourced daily regimen, providing them with vitamins and supplements essential to their foundational health.”

“At The Vitamin Shoppe, we understand that wellness is not one-size-fits-all, and that our customers are looking for custom solutions to meet their own unique health and wellness goals,” said Sharon Leite, chief executive officer of The Vitamin Shoppe. “With the launch of Only Me, we are encouraging customers to take time for self-care and prioritize their health, with the ease and convenience of a personalized delivery service — so they can become their best selves, however they define it.”

Along with the convenience, the company is taking an omnichannel approach as the customized experience can be accessed online and shoppers can also sign up at a local store.

The Subscription Plan

The program joins supplement and vitamin formulas in personalized daily packs, which the company noted are “designed to work together to help individuals reach their wellness goals.” Each package is “individually tailored” from a 37-supplement library.

When it comes to pricing, the subscription service is available for a monthly fee. Individual plan prices are based on total recommended products as well as dosages. The company also notes that pre-packaged daily Quick Packs are also available to customers who have specific health and wellness goals in mind.

The offering also provides users with access to the company’s growing certified nutritionist team who serve as a resource to customers. They are available for one-on-one consultations and coaching through phone, live video chat or in-store consultations in specific markets.

The company also noted that a board-certified physician nutrition specialist as well as an American food science and nutrition expert, serve on Only Me’s scientific advisory panel. And the retailer noted that advisors “will incorporate new studies and the most up-to-date scientific information into the Only Me personalization algorithms to best serve customers’ needs, as medical science evolves.”

The Wellness Subscription Market

Beyond vitamins, other innovators are turning to the subscription business model for other offerings designed for consumer wellness.

Calm’s subscription, for instance, includes access to a suite of meditation and mindfulness connected services. Those include guided daily 10-minute meditations, access to wellness master classes and half-hour bedtime stories to aid sleep. Over 30 million people have downloaded the app, according to news from July, and the firm has been profitable for over a year.

Sleep Stories have turned into a killer content offering for Calm, and membership has reportedly skyrocketed. Calm has also since achieved unicorn status as of its last funding round earlier in 2019.

The goal for Calm going forward, according to previous reports, is to take the growing success of its core product and build that out into a full-scale online and offline wellness enterprise.

And, in the fitness space, digital innovators are building platforms on the subscription business model to help users access instruction as well as encouragement from fitness trainers.

Livekick, in one case, offers real-time personal training via video on devices ranging from laptops to phones and tablets or streamed to a smart television. Users connect with real people instead of pre-recorded videos. They sign up for the platform with a short questionnaire and set up a fitness profile with their height, gender and other basics the trainer needs to know. They then pick a plan with one, two or three weekly sessions.

And NEOU includes classes in several different disciplines from boxing to barre. Its subscription service is available through several different mediums like Apple TV, Roku, iOS, Android and the web.

With the help of the subscription business model, innovators are offering products as well as services to consumers designed with health and wellness in mind.