Is Costco’s Hearing Aid Department Perfectly Primed to Benefit from the Boomer Gold-Rush?

Is Costco’s Hearing Aid Department Perfectly Primed to Benefit from the Boomer Gold-Rush?

Have Costco accidentally stumbled upon a goldmine?

Over the next 6 years, the number of 70+ year olds in the US is going to grow from an estimated 30 million to 75 million people.

Much of this is due to baby boomers with 10,000 people reaching the big seven-zero every day.

This is great news for the hearing care industry (with our market of potential hearing aid wearers drastically growing) ...?

...? but the biggest beneficiary is Costco.

For the past 20 years, they have built a loyal customer base of suburban boomers, creating and reaffirming the belief system that shopping at Costco results in trade prices being passed directly to them.

It means that when these loyal shoppers need hearing aids, then it’s unsurprising that the first place that they’ll thing to go is Costco.?

  • They’ll feel smart for benefiting from trade discounts
  • They’ll feel like they’re getting a competitive advantage over the “expensive” alternative options
  • And they’ll appreciate the familiarity/comfort of the experience?

Whether it’s intention or not, Costco are in prime position to benefit from a market that is going to 3.5x in less than a decade.

To add insult to injury, they also have an immense amount of data on their customers and a marketing machine that allows them to track and timely communicate.

It’s Goliath.

You versus Costco

So, what can David (IE, private practice) to fight against this dominance, protect market share locally and encourage more people to actively choose them.

I believe there’s 2 prominent moves.

#1 – Educate Your Community?

What Cliff Olson has done on YouTube is a prime example of this – he’s educated the consumer that people need significantly more than hearing aids to address a hearing loss, and he's doing a world-class job.

Your job is to do this on a local level.

Unfortunately for us, there remains a narrative that the solution to a hearing loss is simply a hearing aid and the longer the belief system that “Dad needs hearing aids” rather than “Dad needs to see a hearing professional” – we’re going to be in a difficult battle.

You need to lead a movement in your community to educate people that the solution to a hearing loss is great hearing care plus hearing aids, ensuring you articulate the big differences between working with somebody like you versus a Costco/big box.?

#2 – Clearly Articulating Your Points of Difference

Like the above, if there remains a belief that the solution to a hearing loss is a hearing aid, then the consumer will believe that you sell hearing aids for $7,000 and Costco sells them for $3000.

It’s a battle you’ll never win.?

You need to be able to clearly articulate all that you bring to the transaction outside of the hearing aid.

This means that you need to line-item what your service actually looks like, it means that you need to be purposeful with explaining your patient journey, and you need the evidence that your approach gets a better result for the patient.

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Once you have these two in place, then you can attack.

  • You can create content in your site to syphon traffic away from Costco to you
  • You can build rock-solid value propositions through your site to attract people who value care/service
  • You can position your pricing to be impossible to compete with to escape price-shopping

But in summary, Costco are positioned to majorly benefit from the boomer gold-rush.

Your job is to disrupt that.

Beckie Kaczmarski

Owner, Kaczmarski Hearing Services

3 个月

I agree 100% with your strategy and we promote it in my practice daily… Costco also sells travel and furniture and insurance and check printing and vehicles and jewelry and tires and even coffins … how are those industries differentiating themselves?

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Jerry Durham

CEO at Client Experience Company, Advisor for Healthcare Practices

3 个月

THE EXPERIENCE.... great break down Oli! stay the course folks.... the DEMAND will be there! cheers

Oliver F. von Borstel

President Ethical Selling Foundation, President Swiss Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands

3 个月

Very helpful! The believe “Dad needs hearing aids” should be like “Dad needs a better quality of life…as we (spouse, family members, friends, colleagues) need it as well. In fact, we all deserve it!”. That should be our mission.

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