The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of healthy living among a wider set of consumers, brands have said.
As a result, premium direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands in the health and wellness space have seen a sustained increase in orders, data shared by ecommerce firms Amazon and BigBasket, as well as the brands themselves showed.
These new-age brands include Gourmet Garden, which sells hydroponic fruits and vegetables, and ones such as Kapiva, Oziva, Slurrp Farm, Wow Life Sciences, Yoga Bar and Man Matters, which sell health supplements, snacks and immunity boosters.
“Now, people are diverting spends from fancy purchases and non-essentials to higher quality and trustworthy alternatives in food,” said Arjun Balaji, CEO of Gourmet Garden, a Bengaluru-based startup that sells organic items farmed in zero contamination environments.
Gourmet Garden has seen a four-times increase in sales compared to pre-Covid-19 levels.
“Sales of our leafy greens have shot up several notches to the point where we are short of supply,” Balaji said.
Consumers are also choosing to experiment with newer premium brands online, a trend that is hard to replicate in an offline setting dominated by large brands.
Hari Menon, CEO of BigBasket, said the spike in healthy eating has been the starkest trend in post-lockdown ordering.
“Customers are trying out new brands in the health space,” he said.
For instance, baby food brand Slurrp Farm has registered 200% growth over February, while Ayurveda products brand Kapiva has registered 183% growth on BigBasket alone.
Sports and energy drinks as a category grew 1.9 times on the platform.
There has been a similar buying pattern on Amazon. The company said searches around the health foods category grew by over 17% compared to pre-Covid times. Within that, emerging brands in the healthy snacks category saw sales spike 2.5 times.
Vahdam Tea has seen revenue grow three times in last three months owing to increased consumption of wellness products, chief executive Bala Sarda told ET.
Man Matters, a digital health clinic for men launched during the lock-own, has seen over 10,000 customers looking for both products and services for health online.
“People are looking for products that are clean, plant-based, Ayurveda-based to include as a part of their daily diet,” said Aarti Gill, founder of Oziva, adding that the brand has seen a 50% increase in sales every month for the last three months.
A mix of active content outreach, as well as targeted marketing, has helped in building consumer trust.
“What we would achieve in 3-4 years, we were able to achieve in 1.5 years,” Dinika Bhatia, co-founder of Nutty Gritties said.
Amazon’s launchpad initiative, which handholds emerging brands, helped Nutty Gritties get constant feedback, visibility, and in turn improve rankings on the platform, Bhatia said.
The rising reach of content marketing-driven sales via social media apps like Instagram has also helped build brand awareness.
“Post the lockdown, we introduced a series of engaging Instagram live do-it-yourself (DIY) sessions and workshops…Through these sessions, customers get an opportunity to learn useful tips, routines and life hacks on topics (including) …health, lifestyle,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
With the digital economy growing rapidly, the top three categories that will see maximum consumption demand are premium products, health and wellness, and lifestyle and recreation, said management consulting firm BCG.
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