How to launch a store on Joom for the sale of dietary supplements to Europe
In this article Vladislav Mikhailenko (FOKS-BIZ) and Arthur Morosyak cover the trends in online sales of dietary supplements and vitamins and also examine a case study for selling dietary supplements to Europe through the Joom marketplace.
The dietary supplements market in Europe - what the seller needs to know:
Sales of dietary supplements is a rather promising direction, which has been rapidly developing over the past decade and shows no signs of slowing down. The Data Bridge experts predict at least threefold growth of the global market from 2020 to 2027.?
The market volume of dietary supplements in Italy, 2016-2027 (in billion dollars)
From 2016-2020, the dietary supplements market in Italy grew annually by 5-6% on average. It is predicted to continue this trend not only in Italy but also throughout greater Europe
?
There are several reasons for the increased popularity of dietary supplements.
Dietary supplements are part of a healthy lifestyle. With the advent of social networks and fitness blogs, healthy lifestyles have gained momentum, and therefore the demand for dietary supplements and vitamins has seen a corresponding surge. According to the 2019 DMS Group surveys, 4 out of 5 ‘health nuts’ take dietary supplements to increase their energy levels and support their body during exercise.
People do not want to be sick and seek ways to boost their immunity, especially in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic. Already in the 2020 survey of the same DMS Group, 65% of respondents stated that they feared that their immune system could be compromised, and therefore, during the pandemic 33% began to take dietary supplements more often than usual. This is the main reason behind the explosive growth of the dietary supplements market in Europe, nowhere more so than in the countries which were the worst hit by Covid-19, namely: France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and Spain.?
Reasons to use dietary supplements and vitamins in 2020. This study used both online surveys and Google Trends. Global queries were made, but particular emphasis was placed on Poland. Source.
How many people use dietary supplements and vitamins on a regular basis, and what is a percentage of those who started to do so during the pandemic? This study was conducted during the first and second coronavirus waves.
?
So what do sellers on the marketplaces get from all this??
“All this, of course, is great, but dietary supplements are sold in pharmacies. What’s this got to do with the JOOM marketplace?” you may ask. The reality is rather different. In fact, the market for the sales of vitamins, dietary supplements and similar products is actually shifting from the pharmacy to the online marketplace.?
This trend already became visible in the mid-2010s. For example, according to the 2016 Rakuten study, online sales of vitamins and dietary supplements grew faster than those of the apparel, fitness and snack markets.?
Online sales of vitamins and supplements exceed sales of apparel, hair care products, snacks and other products
By 2019, about 9% of all dietary supplements and vitamins were being sold online. In 2020, largely due to the coronavirus outbreak, this figure soared by 61%, and experts predict this trend will continue.?
For 2023, online sales of dietary supplements and vitamins is predicted to occupy 20% of the total market. An increase is predicted for all global regions, including Europe.
Considering all these factors, an online dietary supplements store launch sounds quite promising. If you offer high quality products and good customer service, you can quickly capture a share of this growing market.
That was the idea behind today’s case study hero, who launched an online store in the Joom marketplace to sell dietary supplements to Europe. Let’s find out what came out of it.
Inputs:
Background
Arthur, NEW LIFE
Our company has been engaged in the sales of dietary supplements since the mid-2000s. Our partners represent time-tested brands, and we have great confidence in the quality of their products. This is a crucial component, since a poor-quality product can do severe damage to the customers’ health. Right from the beginning, sales were offline, but since the global adoption of the Internet, online stores took precedence. When we noticed a sharp rise in the online market for dietary supplements and decided to open stores in marketplaces and sell products abroad.?
It is much easier, more favorable and more convenient than opening your own store from scratch.?
Launching a store
We started to enter the global market from the online marketplace. The decisive factor is that it opens access to our products for almost all the European countries and the post-Soviet space.
It was launched in December 2020. The unloading of goods and the store activation were performed through the FOKS platform. Compared to our previous experience of working directly with marketplaces, things are much easier working with FOKS.?
We hardly noticed how the process unfolded: we simply unloaded the products onto the platform and in a week or two we had our ready-made store.?
A significant aspect in the field of dietary supplements is brand authorization. Since the product is health-related, such brands are tested much more thoroughly than, for instance, clothes or kitchenware and utensils.?
With regard to product quality, all is well, so there were no problems.?
In a month we had the first stable sales, and 4 months later (note: the interview was done in May 2021) they are still growing. We believe this growth will continue.?
?Where do our sales come from?
As a rule, we use 3 customer-recruiting channels: advertising in the Joom marketplace itself, promotions and sale events, and advertising from bloggers.?
Joom Ads is a relatively new tool at Joom marketplace that sets up advertising both for the store as a whole and for individual products.?
Although this is a new tool, it was extremely easy to understand: the interface is simple and intuitive, and is similar to Facebook advertising accounts. The guys at FOKS kindly advised us.?
The main thing is to choose good rates and a daily budget. At the start we lost a little money due to non-optimal rates, however, we quickly corrected our mistakes. Now we have settled on comfortable advertising rates that bring us 10-20 orders per day.?
Advertising works hand in hand with another tool - sale events and promotions. If you work in a marketplace, be sure to participate in all promotions: people like to purchase goods at a discount.?
We always take part in the Joom sale events and are very pleased with the results. We are still working on the last channel. Bloggers are often afraid to try and review dietary supplements, or only do it for a great deal of money. We are looking for people with a good reputation and suitable audience who would agree to advertise dietary supplements in Joom.
This channel will target the audience of health nuts who follow fitness bloggers and want to be like them
Shipping and Feedback
We do delivery through Ukrposhta.?For 4 months of work, there have been no problems: all goods arrive to the buyer on time and perfectly safe. We haven’t had any complaints or returns due to late delivery yet, and we hope we won’t have them.
As to feedback, it’s also okay: mainly, our customers are satisfied with both the delivery and the product itself.?
In their reviews they write that the product is of high quality, they often compliment us on our instructions, which we have translated into both English and Spanish. They also write they liked the packing exterior.?
The fact that people usually leave their reviews right upon delivery, before they try out the product, plays an oversize role. Due to this, we don’t have much feedback “on the subject”.?
There is also negative feedback, but fortunately it is quite rare. Usually, disappointed customers just leave a bad rating and do not provide any reason. We always reach out to them for more details about their experience in order to improve our customer service.?
We are also thinking about a global solution of the problem in order to somehow motivate customers to leave detailed feedback rather than just uninformative ratings.
Outcomes
What’s next??
Since we’ve been doing quite well for the store and the online market for dietary supplements is growing as a whole, we are planning to launch stores on other marketplaces.
We have already tested the waters, yielded initial results, and are ready for the next step. Joom will remain our main facility as it covers the whole of Europe, but we will also focus on other stores. We have not decided which ones yet. We will continue to cooperate with FOKS, because the platform significantly simplifies the launch and maintenance of the store, and when we have several of them, it will be much more convenient to manage everything from one account.?
?
Founder Seller UP
2 年??