Founded in 2020, Wellbeing Nutrition set out to create supplements that provided nutrition using natural ingredients and were based on scientific evidence and created sustainable ways. Talking of the challenges, Saurabh Kapoor, Co-Founder, Wellbeing Nutrition says.
“The comparison of this category with OTC where consumer perceptions are that the efficacy is instant. This has been a challenge to overcome as wellness is a long journey and you don’t get instant results. The second challenge is changing the mindset of consumers to consume supplements daily.” However, a positive change for the category has been the shift in consumers’ mindset from being health-conscious to focusing on wellness.
Wellbeing Nutrition started on the e-commerce platforms but pivoted quickly to an omnichannel strategy and also bet big on airport retail. Overall, as a category, consumers tend to read the back of the pack to understand the product. This was the rationale behind venturing into airport retail where a combination of brand visibility and people with time at the airport to browse around and are in the mind space to see new products. Another key reason was that Wellbeing Nutrition is a good fitment for travelers looking to carry a nutraceutical supplement. Kapoor says, “The consumption at airports was so good that it gave us the confidence to scale up omnichannel; from airports to chain pharmacies, to even Barista cafes. It was an innovation to be present across all cafes and we felt there was a good fitment and all this strengthened the credibility of the brand. We are now present in 3,000 stores across India from chain pharmacies to airports and modern trade.”
Defining the ideal Wellbeing Nutrition TG as “India One” a consumer with disposable income, health conscious, digitally savvy and willing to pay a premium. Initially, the product adoption was seen in metros and Tier I cities, but over time Tier II and Tier III cities have seen a faster growth.
Marketing to set the right expectations
Kapoor says that a big learning has been to set the right expectations for a consumer. He explains, “The moment you start setting the right expectations in marketing, i.e. it's a long-term journey ahead, then the acquired consumers are well informed about the output and are more loyal to the brand because they see the results happening over a period of time. Over a period of time, our marketing has evolved around educating consumers about long-term solutions rather than looking at short-term results. You may acquire fewer consumers in the first transaction but they are there for a long. That's where the profitability and the long-term sustenance of the brand come in. You want people to stick to you for a long time; so setting the expectations has been very important.”
Kapoor states that Wellbeing Nutrition has retention of over 40% with almost 45% to 50% of customers making purchases multiple times in a year. On a monthly basis, the nutraceutical firm looks to acquire 30% to 40% of customers. He says, “Consuming supplements is a habit that you're trying to build with consumers. When we have a consumer on board, there's a proper CRM journey. We connect with the consumer and guide them on what the product they bought contains, how to consume it etc. Over the next eight weeks, we try and be with the consumer at each step to guide them. so that at the end of the eight weeks, it become a habit with the consumer. That's been our constant endeavor.” Over the six few months, Wellbeing Nutrition looks to bring in innovations to increase engagements on apps, utilizing AI tools to make the consumer journey easier and personalized as per the consumers’ need.
The common element of being fitness enthusiast and consumers of the product led to Rakul Preet Singh, Mira Kapoor (both are also investors in the company) being brand ambassadors. Recently, Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Kemmu were brought on board for Wellbeing Nutrition’s recently launched sports and performance range. The Indian sports and performance nutrition segment is estimated to be around $3.1 billion and Wellbeing Nutrition is looking at introducing clean, plant-based innovative products such as protein and magnesium. Kapoor says, “There is a huge repeat buy in the sports and performance nutrition segment. The average of repeat is much higher here as compared to any other category, because this is a product that you consume month-on-month.” Wellbeing Nutrition is taking a different approach for this category where the company has tied up with gyms with trainers using it and then creating content on their experience. Wellbeing Nutrition looked at the OTT platform for shows where there could be a seamless integration with the product shown as part of the characters lifestyle. The company then sponsored the OTT show, Half Love Half Arranged on MX Player to improve its brand visibility and reach out to a larger audience.
The growth trajectory
Currently, 65% of Wellbeing Nutrition's overall revenue comes from online and 35% from retail and exports. Of the 65% online sales, 35% to 40% sales comes from the company website with another 35% to 40% from e-commerce platform with the remaining coming from quick commerce. Kapoor says, “Till a couple of months back, we were only present on Blinkit, now we are online on Swiggy Instamart and Zepto. We see quick commerce rapidly growing. The discovery happens through online channels like our website and e-commerce platforms but when the consumption starts happening and you want to repeat purchase, people are moving on to quick commerce. In the next six months to a year we see a larger percentage happening through quick commerce.”
Looking ahead, Kapoor sees its biggest growth driver to be collagens, for which Wellness Nutrition has been the category creator. With acceptance for collagen increasing, the company is looking to innovate the collagen format; in addition to the powder format, which is currently available, Wellbeing Nutrition is looking into liquid collagens and other different unique formats. He says, “Globally the market for collagen has already been established. There is a lot of innovation that will happen in the collagen category as that will be the driver category over the next two years. We will continue to build this category. The second category is sports and performance followed by sleep.” An example of innovation is melts (oral thin strips) where the strip dissolves when placed on the tongue. Its first product launch was a daily green multivitamin which was an effervescent that became a fizzy drink when added to a glass of water. The company is looking to continue down the innovation path and bring about a differentiation in the existing large categories.
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