August 10, 2007
PLBuyer: The Senior Market Transformation
By Martin Schultz
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of a current article from Private Label Buyer, presented here for discussion.
The senior care products market is getting ready to explode. The basic premise is that as the baby boomer generation prepares to enter retirement age, the need for products that enhance their lifestyles, improve their health prospects and ease the burden of their disabilities will accelerate.
Interpreting these demands, the food industry is fast developing new kinds of functional drinks and foods that offer a host of specific benefits. These may include diet-control foods, products that conform to diabetic requirements, foods with low or zero sodium, fat, carbs or sugar, foods that reduce cholesterol and foods offering high fiber or an extra nutritional punch. On the horizon, too, are foods that will contain pharmacological ingredients to help reduce, for example, high blood pressure.
Another requirement of seniors in the food category that is only now being recognized is portion control. Divorced or widowed, more and more seniors are living alone, and they tend to eat sparingly.
As Rob Lippucci, product marketing manager of Hospital Specialty Co., Cleveland, sees it, the adult portion of the personal care market, which includes incontinence products, tissues and hand wipes, “has the most potential for growth and will grow enormously once the baby boomers retire. In fact, the need for incontinence products by increasing numbers of seniors will cause the market to burst out of its present configuration.”
In the prescription drug category, whole new classes of medicines are likely to be manufactured over the next decade to mitigate the effects of various physical and mental aging issues, including arthritic conditions and advanced coronary disabilities as well as debilitating conditions of the body, such as Alzheimer’s and strokes. Once the patents on many of these drugs run out, opportunities will open for generics and various store brands.
A great deal of work is also being done to improve the design and handling of everyday products. Thus, aids for use by physically disabled seniors in the bathroom and the kitchen, for example, are beginning to show some ergonomic improvement. They are designed to be handled by people suffering from disabling conditions in which the inflammation is sufficiently painful to induce the holder to instantly release the product. Walkers would be designed for more comfortable mobility, wheelchairs would require less mechanical strength to move, wall bars to steady people climbing into baths would be textured for a more comfortable grip.
In time, the senior personal care products market will go through a transformation every bit as revolutionary as that of the personal computer or the cell phone. Getting ahead of the coming changes will represent both a challenge and an opportunity for private label manufacturers.
Discussion Questions: Do you think vendors and retailers are prepared for the graying baby boomer generation? What opportunities do you think they are underestimating? Which ones do you think they are overestimating?
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The aging of the population doesn’t require an overnight solution because it evolves year to year. There will be no shortage of entrepreneurs developing new products in all types of categories and classifications. However, with specific interest to health and well being, and with health care being expensive and unaffordable to the vast majority of under-insured, there will be excessive opportunities in the area of HBC, OTC, vitamins, and nutraceuticals that can be purchased without doctors and prescriptions.
The senior products market is not getting ready to explode–it already has. Increasing attention is being paid to this segment by forward thinking manufacturers.
However, retailers have done very little, if anything at this point, to make stores more senior-friendly. If you want to cater to this market in the future, some simple steps will have to be taken. Among them: lower shelving, better signage, more manageable carts, in-store seating, easily read product and ingredient labeling and even magnifying glasses attached to shelves to make things easier.
If you’re looking for examples, check out some retailers in Germany and Austria–particularly the latter where chains like Edeka are expanding stores catering to a rapidly aging population
I think that most retailers are moving at a snails pace when it comes to addressing offerings to the aging population. I run a non-profit grocery shopping and home delivery service for the elderly and those with mobility issues. It’s one thing to focus on the products that stock the shelves, but it’s another thing for some on how to get to the store to shop for themselves. In the community in which I live 17% of all residents are aged 60 and over. 2.5% are 85 years young and above.
I’ve shopped at every store in my community and I can definitely tell you that much attention needs to be paid to this population. I love the idea of magnifiers available for seniors to read the ridiculously small print on labels that reading glasses alone can’t “cut it.” I think I’ll suggest that one at the store I shop at now.
Also, in looking at the poll results on this topic, I fail to concur. I believe senior friendly ergonomic-designed products should have scored higher than 19%. You can offer the perfect food in the perfect portion, but…if due to arthritic hands, you can open it, then what good is it?
About time we all woke up to this huge marketing opportunity. Everyone has been chasing Millennials and GenY and have underestimated the sheer buying power of the baby boomers as a key driver for growth.
One obvious category ready to explode, with baby boomers especially, is homeopathic medicines. Nearly three out of every four adults over age 50 use some kind of alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, according to a study conducted, in 2000, by Ohio State University researchers. This study found that 71% of older adults used some form of alternative medicine. This is not just simple herbal solutions like the success of Airborne, we’re talking about a massive category with a wide offering that is waiting to be tapped into. Remember when organic food was considered relevant for soya milk sipping hippies? Today it’s one of the fastest growing categories in America. All hail baby boomers and their wallets!
Good points made here. Aging boomers will have the means and desire to spend, and are willing to try new things. They will be more active than previous generations. But the health care, leisure and transportation industries are being transformed, and so is retailing.
I agree with the strategy of seeing what industry leaders are trying, and copying what’s working. It means being flexible enough to serve several diverse populations simultaneously. Even the senior market itself is in fact many sub-markets.
Some seniors will be retired, some working full-time, some part-time, some running their own businesses. Some will be wealthy, some will be looking to save every penny. Some will be healthier, some will not. But it would certainly be wrong to assume that an aging society cannot be an economically growing, technologically innovative, culturally dynamic, socially vigorous society.
So many products have overly busy labels with tiny print and insufficient contrast backgrounds. Ditto for a lot of print ads, web sites, and instruction booklets. Lots of people over age 49 can’t easily read prescription drug inserts. The “senior” market starts with folks whose eyes have gotten farsighted. These people often buy the same products everyone else wants. Hard to reach them if they can’t read the ads, web sites, labels, or instructions.
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The aging of the population doesn’t require an overnight solution because it evolves year to year. There will be no shortage of entrepreneurs developing new products in all types of categories and classifications. However, with specific interest to health and well being, and with health care being expensive and unaffordable to the vast majority of under-insured, there will be excessive opportunities in the area of HBC, OTC, vitamins, and nutraceuticals that can be purchased without doctors and prescriptions.
The senior products market is not getting ready to explode–it already has. Increasing attention is being paid to this segment by forward thinking manufacturers.
However, retailers have done very little, if anything at this point, to make stores more senior-friendly. If you want to cater to this market in the future, some simple steps will have to be taken. Among them: lower shelving, better signage, more manageable carts, in-store seating, easily read product and ingredient labeling and even magnifying glasses attached to shelves to make things easier.
If you’re looking for examples, check out some retailers in Germany and Austria–particularly the latter where chains like Edeka are expanding stores catering to a rapidly aging population
I think that most retailers are moving at a snails pace when it comes to addressing offerings to the aging population. I run a non-profit grocery shopping and home delivery service for the elderly and those with mobility issues. It’s one thing to focus on the products that stock the shelves, but it’s another thing for some on how to get to the store to shop for themselves. In the community in which I live 17% of all residents are aged 60 and over. 2.5% are 85 years young and above.
I’ve shopped at every store in my community and I can definitely tell you that much attention needs to be paid to this population. I love the idea of magnifiers available for seniors to read the ridiculously small print on labels that reading glasses alone can’t “cut it.” I think I’ll suggest that one at the store I shop at now.
Also, in looking at the poll results on this topic, I fail to concur. I believe senior friendly ergonomic-designed products should have scored higher than 19%. You can offer the perfect food in the perfect portion, but…if due to arthritic hands, you can open it, then what good is it?
About time we all woke up to this huge marketing opportunity. Everyone has been chasing Millennials and GenY and have underestimated the sheer buying power of the baby boomers as a key driver for growth.
One obvious category ready to explode, with baby boomers especially, is homeopathic medicines. Nearly three out of every four adults over age 50 use some kind of alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, according to a study conducted, in 2000, by Ohio State University researchers. This study found that 71% of older adults used some form of alternative medicine. This is not just simple herbal solutions like the success of Airborne, we’re talking about a massive category with a wide offering that is waiting to be tapped into. Remember when organic food was considered relevant for soya milk sipping hippies? Today it’s one of the fastest growing categories in America. All hail baby boomers and their wallets!
Good points made here. Aging boomers will have the means and desire to spend, and are willing to try new things. They will be more active than previous generations. But the health care, leisure and transportation industries are being transformed, and so is retailing.
I agree with the strategy of seeing what industry leaders are trying, and copying what’s working. It means being flexible enough to serve several diverse populations simultaneously. Even the senior market itself is in fact many sub-markets.
Some seniors will be retired, some working full-time, some part-time, some running their own businesses. Some will be wealthy, some will be looking to save every penny. Some will be healthier, some will not. But it would certainly be wrong to assume that an aging society cannot be an economically growing, technologically innovative, culturally dynamic, socially vigorous society.
So many products have overly busy labels with tiny print and insufficient contrast backgrounds. Ditto for a lot of print ads, web sites, and instruction booklets. Lots of people over age 49 can’t easily read prescription drug inserts. The “senior” market starts with folks whose eyes have gotten farsighted. These people often buy the same products everyone else wants. Hard to reach them if they can’t read the ads, web sites, labels, or instructions.