Healthy Life to expand online
Bricks-and-mortar retailer Healthy Life will start selling its range of health and wellness products online in the very near future.
That is according to Healthy Life’s chief marketing officer Simon Cheng (pictured above, left), who said at an event in Victoria on Thursday that the launch of an e-commerce site was “imminent”.
The retailer currently has a website and social media presence, but up to now customers have not been able to transact online.
Online sales part of broader transformation
Kicking off a comprehensive reboot in September of last year, Healthy Life has been working to shed an outdated image and embrace the booming ‘wellness’ market in a bid to acquire younger consumers and modernise the brand.
Over the past nine months, the retailer has launched a new store concept focused on experiences, with customers able to get advice from qualified naturopaths, nutritionists and dieticians at Wellness Hubs located in every store, and a broader product range, including natural beauty and healthcare products.
The move to launch an e-commerce site is a key part of the company’s transformation strategy.
“We basically see two main functions of the digital proposition,” Cheng told Internet Retailing.
“One is to provide the great range of products that we have to a national audience in locations where we don’t have stores … The second thing is a medium-term strategy to be the digital hub for our community.”
Cheng wants Healthy Life to become the go-to place to learn and talk about preventative health online in Australia.
“There are so many questions about preventative health that people want to ask, but I think they’re scared to or don’t know where to go. There’s only Dr. Google at the moment,” he said.
A limited following on social media
Healthy Life has a way to go to become Australia’s natural and preventative healthcare hub. It currently has around 4,000 followers on Instagram and 11,000 fans on Facebook, while Blackmores has over 300,000 fans on Facebook, and online retailer Nourished Life has 200,000.
“We do have a limited following on social,” Cheng admitted, but he believes Healthy Life has the capacity to bring together groups of people who are all interested in wellness, but currently following different accounts.
“What I’ve seen is that in this industry, there are a lot of micro-communities and that’s great … they’re all specialised around certain trends, topics and niches. But there’s no one dealing with natural and preventative health in its entirety.”
Healthy Life has not hired anyone to drive its digital strategy, but according to Cheng, the company is in an “aggressive growth phase and always on the lookout for good people”.
Besides opening a standalone online shop, Cheng said the company is also seriously considering launching on Amazon.
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