July 2, 2008
Weight Loss Companies’ Shrinking Customer Base
Consumers who need to shed some pounds are more likely to cut out weight loss programs such as Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, etc. during tough economic periods.
While there’s no shortage of dieters, Marketdata Enterprises estimates that 72 million will take up some form of weight loss regimen this year, many are finding that the price associated with paying dues and special food is too dear when the cost of filling up the fuel tank is at an all-time high.
“It’s definitely a discretionary dollar,” Michael Binetti, a UBS analyst told AdAge.com. Mr. Binetti estimates that 20 percent of Americans who claim to be dieting are “on their own diet.”
John LaRosa, research director of Marketdata Enterprises, said dieters looking to save money “will shift toward less expensive do-it-yourself methods instead of doing a structured program like Jenny Craig that might cost $1,100 to $1,200 over three to four months.”
Some, according to Mr. LaRosa, will go out and buy less expensive products such as diet books, supplements and/or diet pills to slim down. Many will use free online programs for information and support.
Discussion Questions: How do weight loss programs maintain market share in economic conditions such as those at present? Do the consumers not using weight loss programs offer opportunities for retailers in various channels? What can retailers do to take advantage of this opportunity?
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Peter has pretty much beat me to it. The opportunity for grocers, as I see it, is huge. You DO NOT have to join a club or buy specific brands; stores are absolutely full of food that can help people either follow a healthy diet and/or a weight loss diet. They just need to be shown where and what they are. It’s one of the things we just keep on coming back to here–education. Blow the horn and show people what they can and should be eating and how it will be better for them. Today’s British papers are full of revelations and exclamations about following a Mediterranean diet and how it can reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Not that it hasn’t been said before but this time there is yet another study that “proves” that it maybe might make a difference. In any case, healthy diets rarely do any harm so it is up to grocers to show people the way.
The other part of the question–what’s a diet club to do? Pretty much the same thing, I think. Stop trying to sell expensive branded products and get real. Build trust. The proof will be in the (perhaps lack of) pudding.
Just buy some Jenny Craig foods, display them along with the complete menu cycle, and show the savings versus buying the same foods at your supermarket. No Jenny Craig customers will drop their plans because you do this, but your regular customers will feel better.
If we owned a supermarket, we’d establish our own “Food for Fitness Club” promoting the spectrum of solutions that only a supermarket can offer: pre-made meals, BFY recipes, fresh fruits & vegetables, healthier beverages, nutritional supplements as well as in-store counseling and weight check-ins.
Why couldn’t Kroger or Safeway hold fitness support meetings (a la Weight Watchers) in their stores? It would drive traffic and create a health halo among shoppers while keeping food purchases in store.
In South Carolina in the BI-LO chain we used to promote a weight-loss program based in the fresh produce department. We featured recipes, meal plans, and a weekly weigh-in with prizes for teams or groups. It worked like a charm, and we had to extend the program several weeks beyond its planned closing date. I always marvel that similar plans aren’t offered by retailers today.
From the grocer’s perspective, I believe the answer is bulk buy opportunities for consumers. Women still want to look good, but don’t want to pay the extra price for specialty frozen foods or to join Jenny Craig (that’s pricey!). Many would opt to keep a gym membership over Jenny Craig. Ultimately, maybe even the gym membership could go, too.
The key for food retailers is to offer affordable diet options. Bulk buying, which many consumers are engaged in now anyway, may be the answer. This lowers the price per unit in such a way that could be somewhat competitive versus other meal options. Grocer “memberships” for loyal diet food buyers (that lowers the price per unit in exchange for greater volume purchasing over time) could also work.
Expand! Expand! Expand! And I’m not talking about waistlines. The healthy living category is the key to capturing this diet business. If customers cannot afford to go to ‘clinics’, they will look for cheaper substitutes such as diet pills and creams. Offering expanded healthy food selections (especially frozen products) will encourage the customer to get everything they need for their ‘diet’ in one location and at affordable prices. The merchandising and cross promotion opportunities are endless for the healthy living category.
This is the perfect time for retailers to take advantage of the healthy living attributes of fresh products like fruits and vegetables. While prices are rising in this arena due to weather and fuel, they still offer the healthiest way to reduce and/or control weight.
Summer time brings local produce options, recipe offerings and outdoor exercise activities that can be easy ways for the retailer to earn some of those “diet dollars” that are just waiting to be spent! Make July and August a “healthy living” time for your customers with promotions and plenty of ideas and you just might win back the dollars going to the diet plans.
First off, I don’t think weight loss centres have too much to worry about over the long term. With most women jumping from one diet plan to another, once the pounds come back, they will be more than ready to return to a system that has proven to work, regardless of cost.
Offering financial incentives and payment plans is one way to help smooth out dips in sales. As for boosting business, why not start offering “mini plans” for those just looking to drop a few pounds over the short term? Weddings, graduations, and other events are perfect reasons to drop 5 or 10 pounds. And if these centres can offer that at an affordable rate, then they may have themselves a whole new market.
Then everyone can celebrate by going out for donuts.
If I would advising this type of client, I would advise them to link with other aspects of human health; dealing with stress, depression, physical ailments, etc…all difficult conditions that many Americans are dealing with today. It probably becomes an easy decision for a patient (customer) who is stressed, depressed, out of work, in debt, or one of the many other miseries occurring across states due to high prices, job loss, and the rotten weather, to just cut out doing things for themselves.
But what if these companies teamed up with other healthy living providers, or insurers, and went on a campaign to talk about the destructive nature of letting important health measures go unattended, and putting together a package of streamlined total healthcare for all individuals, particularly those at risk during these difficult times? Wow!
I would not advise them to go it alone, but assemble a collaboration through which these companies and providers can survive, looking forward to better days for them and their customers.
Provide clear, concise, accurate and simple information to consumers. Become a place they can look for valuable advice each week on weight loss. Offering this information through store dietitians, a consumer advisor or spokesperson in a store ad, website or circular makes a lot of sense.
Information should include suggesting healthy meals with recipes and components in one location in the store, as well as discounts on products like Smart Ones by Weight Watchers. Perhaps Weight Watchers or other organizations could partner with their local supermarket on membership discounts as well as product reductions during this time of economic cutbacks.
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Peter has pretty much beat me to it. The opportunity for grocers, as I see it, is huge. You DO NOT have to join a club or buy specific brands; stores are absolutely full of food that can help people either follow a healthy diet and/or a weight loss diet. They just need to be shown where and what they are. It’s one of the things we just keep on coming back to here–education. Blow the horn and show people what they can and should be eating and how it will be better for them. Today’s British papers are full of revelations and exclamations about following a Mediterranean diet and how it can reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Not that it hasn’t been said before but this time there is yet another study that “proves” that it maybe might make a difference. In any case, healthy diets rarely do any harm so it is up to grocers to show people the way.
The other part of the question–what’s a diet club to do? Pretty much the same thing, I think. Stop trying to sell expensive branded products and get real. Build trust. The proof will be in the (perhaps lack of) pudding.
Just buy some Jenny Craig foods, display them along with the complete menu cycle, and show the savings versus buying the same foods at your supermarket. No Jenny Craig customers will drop their plans because you do this, but your regular customers will feel better.
If we owned a supermarket, we’d establish our own “Food for Fitness Club” promoting the spectrum of solutions that only a supermarket can offer: pre-made meals, BFY recipes, fresh fruits & vegetables, healthier beverages, nutritional supplements as well as in-store counseling and weight check-ins.
Why couldn’t Kroger or Safeway hold fitness support meetings (a la Weight Watchers) in their stores? It would drive traffic and create a health halo among shoppers while keeping food purchases in store.
In South Carolina in the BI-LO chain we used to promote a weight-loss program based in the fresh produce department. We featured recipes, meal plans, and a weekly weigh-in with prizes for teams or groups. It worked like a charm, and we had to extend the program several weeks beyond its planned closing date. I always marvel that similar plans aren’t offered by retailers today.
From the grocer’s perspective, I believe the answer is bulk buy opportunities for consumers. Women still want to look good, but don’t want to pay the extra price for specialty frozen foods or to join Jenny Craig (that’s pricey!). Many would opt to keep a gym membership over Jenny Craig. Ultimately, maybe even the gym membership could go, too.
The key for food retailers is to offer affordable diet options. Bulk buying, which many consumers are engaged in now anyway, may be the answer. This lowers the price per unit in such a way that could be somewhat competitive versus other meal options. Grocer “memberships” for loyal diet food buyers (that lowers the price per unit in exchange for greater volume purchasing over time) could also work.
Expand! Expand! Expand! And I’m not talking about waistlines. The healthy living category is the key to capturing this diet business. If customers cannot afford to go to ‘clinics’, they will look for cheaper substitutes such as diet pills and creams. Offering expanded healthy food selections (especially frozen products) will encourage the customer to get everything they need for their ‘diet’ in one location and at affordable prices. The merchandising and cross promotion opportunities are endless for the healthy living category.
This is the perfect time for retailers to take advantage of the healthy living attributes of fresh products like fruits and vegetables. While prices are rising in this arena due to weather and fuel, they still offer the healthiest way to reduce and/or control weight.
Summer time brings local produce options, recipe offerings and outdoor exercise activities that can be easy ways for the retailer to earn some of those “diet dollars” that are just waiting to be spent! Make July and August a “healthy living” time for your customers with promotions and plenty of ideas and you just might win back the dollars going to the diet plans.
First off, I don’t think weight loss centres have too much to worry about over the long term. With most women jumping from one diet plan to another, once the pounds come back, they will be more than ready to return to a system that has proven to work, regardless of cost.
Offering financial incentives and payment plans is one way to help smooth out dips in sales. As for boosting business, why not start offering “mini plans” for those just looking to drop a few pounds over the short term? Weddings, graduations, and other events are perfect reasons to drop 5 or 10 pounds. And if these centres can offer that at an affordable rate, then they may have themselves a whole new market.
Then everyone can celebrate by going out for donuts.
If I would advising this type of client, I would advise them to link with other aspects of human health; dealing with stress, depression, physical ailments, etc…all difficult conditions that many Americans are dealing with today. It probably becomes an easy decision for a patient (customer) who is stressed, depressed, out of work, in debt, or one of the many other miseries occurring across states due to high prices, job loss, and the rotten weather, to just cut out doing things for themselves.
But what if these companies teamed up with other healthy living providers, or insurers, and went on a campaign to talk about the destructive nature of letting important health measures go unattended, and putting together a package of streamlined total healthcare for all individuals, particularly those at risk during these difficult times? Wow!
I would not advise them to go it alone, but assemble a collaboration through which these companies and providers can survive, looking forward to better days for them and their customers.
Provide clear, concise, accurate and simple information to consumers. Become a place they can look for valuable advice each week on weight loss. Offering this information through store dietitians, a consumer advisor or spokesperson in a store ad, website or circular makes a lot of sense.
Information should include suggesting healthy meals with recipes and components in one location in the store, as well as discounts on products like Smart Ones by Weight Watchers. Perhaps Weight Watchers or other organizations could partner with their local supermarket on membership discounts as well as product reductions during this time of economic cutbacks.