The health and wellness industry is experiencing a surge like never before. The Business Research Company expects the sector to grow from $6,383.68 billion in 2024 to $6,880.53 billion in 2025, driven by rising health consciousness, preventive healthcare measures, evolving dietary preferences, and the expansion of ecommerce in health retail. Consumers are more engaged than ever in making informed choices about their well-being, leading to increased spending across multiple health categories.
Shifting consumer demographics further highlights this growth. National Institute of Health (NIH) research also indicates that the number of people aged 50 and older with at least one chronic illness will likely double from 71.5 million in 2020 to 142.7 million by 2050. With consumers actively seeking products that enhance their well-being, health and wellness retailers have a significant opportunity to capitalize on this expanding market.
From Wallets to Wellness: Why Consumers Are Investing in Their Health
Health is a top priority for consumers worldwide. McKinsey data shows that 73% of UK consumers, 82% of US consumers, and a staggering 87% of Chinese consumers consider wellness an important or top priority in their lives. Across generations and demographics, more people are investing in products that support their physical and mental well-being.
Within the broader wellness category, consumers are purchasing products across a diverse range of needs. Another McKinsey study reveals around 42% of consumers in the US purchase health products, such as over-the-counter medications, personal and home-care products, and vitamins. This is just slightly behind the 43% purchasing the most popular health and wellness category: appearance-based items, including skin care, cosmetic-procedural, and hair care products.
Another major driver of growth is healthy aging. McKinsey data shows that more than 60% of global consumers consider products that support longevity and age-related wellness to be “very” or “extremely” important. Additionally, roughly 70% of UK and US consumers and 85% in China report increasing their spending on healthy aging products year-over-year. This demand spans multiple generations—both younger shoppers investing in preventative health measures and older consumers looking to live healthier, longevity-focused lives.
As a result, brands that cater to this market (and help their shoppers find exactly what they need quickly and seamlessly) stand to gain a significant competitive advantage.
The Path to Wellness is Paved with Challenges
While demand is high, selling health and wellness products online presents unique challenges. Brands must know how to navigate complexities unique to the industry to remain competitive.
One of the biggest challenges is helping customers find what they need in an industry that often sees online stores hosting vast product catalogs. Health and wellness online retailers can carry thousands of SKUs across multiple categories—from supplements and skincare to fitness and eco-friendly household essentials. One additional challenge for retailers is health shoppers’ search behaviors. These consumers will frequently search based on ingredients, health benefits, values such as ethical sourcing, or certifications like B Corp certification. Standard on-site search functionality just isn’t enough to deliver the specific, relevant results shoppers want.
HealthPost CEO Abel Butler explains the challenge well: “There’s a lot of nuance to the indexing needed to serve relevant results based on all those different behaviors and ways that people search.” When customers can’t quickly find the products that match their needs, they’re more likely to abandon their search altogether.
Beyond search functionality, shoppers’ demand for online personalization is higher than ever. The Medallia 2024 State of CX Personalization Report shows that 82% of customers say personalization drives brand choice. Consumers who rate their shopping experiences as “highly personalized” give an overall satisfaction score of 9.4 out of 10. By contrast, those who don’t experience strong personalization rate their satisfaction much lower at just 6.5. The data tells a compelling story; customers expect online retailers to understand their individual needs and preferences. If those retailers fail to meet customers’ expectations, satisfaction (and loyalty) suffers.
Another challenge ecommerce stores in the health and wellness industry commonly face is the time-intensive manual merchandising processes. To drive educational content and targeted promotions, stores rely on promo-specific landing pages to support campaigns, new product launches, or seasonal trends. However, the need to curate these pages and product collections manually is slowing down many retailers.
How Searchspring Gives a Healthy Kick to the Online Experience
With the right ecommerce technology, health and wellness brands can overcome many of the challenges they face—and create a more seamless shopping experience for customers. Searchspring’s Generative Discovery platform delivers powerful search, merchandising, and personalization tools that help brands boost conversion, increase average order value (AOV), and create experiences that drive loyalty.
Shoppers don’t always search using exact product names. Instead, they might search more naturally for terms like “organic skincare cream for sensitive skin.” Searchspring’s AI-powered search engine, which includes natural language processing (NLP), allows shoppers to search on their terms. Whether customers type in specific scenarios or use conversational language, Searchspring understands their intent and delivers “just what the doctor ordered” for each result. The result is fewer dead-end searches, less frustration, and a faster path to purchase.
Meanwhile, Searchspring’s personalized product recommendations dynamically adapt to each shopper’s behavior to show them more of what they’re likely to buy. Instead of static recommendations, shoppers browsing collagen supplements may see vitamin C products that enhance collagen absorption. This level of intelligent personalization not only improves the shopping experience but also leads to increased AOV by enticing customers with hyper-relevant cross-sells and upsells.
Additionally, health and wellness stores are managing promotional campaigns and product collections far more efficiently with Searchspring’s automated merchandising capabilities. HealthPost, a leader in ethical wellness retail, has already seen the benefits of this firsthand. Group Ecommerce Manager Tineke Simpson explains, “We have a lot of emails leading customers to specific landing pages. Searchspring has really enhanced our ability to create one-off landing pages using automated merchandising. Instead of setting everything up one-by-one, which is extremely time inefficient, we’re letting the tech do the heavy lifting to set up landing pages for promos.”
Is it time to leverage the search, merchandising, personalization, and many other cutting-edge capabilities of an award-winning Generative Discovery platform made for online retailers?
Gain more insights from the complete HealthPost case study, or book your no-obligation demo of Searchspring now.
