In today’s world of e-Commerce, there are so many places to sell dietary supplements online.
And if you’re just starting out you may think of selling your supplements on Amazon.
While Amazon may be the first marketplace that comes to mind, there are several other platforms that are specifically tailored to cater to the nutritional product industry.
In this article, I’ll will explore the top marketplaces for selling dietary supplements online, providing brand owners with valuable alternatives to Amazon.
Why Look Beyond Amazon?
While Amazon is undoubtedly a leading e-Commerce platform, it is worth considering other options that focus exclusively on selling nutritional products.
The biggest reason not to sell on Amazon is that you don’t own the customer.
Owning the customer is where all of the money is made in a supplement business.
Owning the customer relationship, is how you can sell to them over and over again. This is what’s called the backend of the business. And it’s where you sell your supplements on a monthly recurring basis as well as sell additional supplements that complement the initial sale. This is done through upsells and through email marketing in post-purchase flows.
All of these selling opportunities contribute to live time value value of the customer. And none of these are available to you when you sell on Amazon.
In addition, Amazon charges a hefty commission fee and it can be difficult to get approved to sell in the supplement category.
And Amazon also has their own brand of supplements that you’ll be competing against, not to mention the competition in the supplement space on Amazon is very steep with big brands that have deep pockets to pay for Amazon sponsored ads.
However, if you already have an established supplement brand, then selling on Amazon can be a great strategy for expanding your revenue.
By diversifying your sales channels, you can tap into niche markets, gain better visibility, and potentially reach a more targeted customer base.
Amazon, however, is not the only option for selling supplements online.
If you don’t have an established supplement brand, there are alternative opportunities for selling dietary supplements.
Alternatives to Selling Supplements on Amazon
The first alternative to consider selling supplements online is the Walmart Marketplace.
With a massive customer base, Walmart Marketplace offers an excellent opportunity to sell your supplements online.
Much like Amazon, selling on the Walmart Marketplace integrates your products into their existing e-Commerce platform.
Additionally, success on Walmart Marketplace can open doors to other retail contracts and further boost your supplement’s recognition.
However, Walmart can be very picky about who they allow to sell on their platform.
There are lots of requirements and rules. Supplement sellers need to show they are established in order to be accepted.
And again like selling on Amazon, you don’t own the customer or have a direct relationship and way of communicating with them after the sale via email, phone or snail mail.
Vitacost is another Amazon, Walmart alternative but there are also major hoops to jump through to get your dietary supplement listed on their website.
An alternative would be selling supplements on eBay.
The eBay marketplace for supplements is a middle ground.
You get the advantage of a platform that’s already getting traffic and customers seeking to buy, but not as many as on Amazon or Walmart.
Additionally the seller fees on eBay have gone up and will likely continue to increase over time.
However, it’s very easy to get started. And eBay does allow herbal supplements, as long as you follow their guidelines for listing.
Their guidelines are very reasonable. Obviously with any supplement on eBay you can’t make non-FDA-approved health claims or be compared to any prescription drug.
Leveraging other peoples traffic via their platform such as Amazon, WallMart and eBay are great ways to add sales to your supplement business.
But with each one, you don’t own the customer.
Owning the customer is so critical to a supplement company because it allows you to sell on the backend.
And the best way to do that is to…
Building Your Own Supplement Website to Sell Your Supplements Online
Creating your own supplement website gives you full control over the customer experience and branding.
Once you’ve acquired a customer you can sell to them again and again through monthly subscriptions, email promotions, post purchase up-sells and down-sells as well as cross sells in the cart and on the product detail page within the buying experience.
All of these will increase both the average order value and the customer life time value.
Selling direct to the consumer is the best way to build a long term supplement brand.
However, an alternative to selling your own supplement brand is to sell other brands.
And the best way to do that is to sell supplements as an affiliate.
Leveraging Affiliate Marketing to Sell Other Supplement Brands
Affiliate marketing is a powerful marketing strategy to drive sales and generate revenue.
You can sell other supplement brands or you can create an affiliate program, of your own and attract promoters who will market your supplements in exchange for a commission.
This mutually beneficial partnership allows you to expand your reach and increase sales.
Because of the average customer lifetime value of a supplement buyer is typically high, the commission rates for affiliates is often quite high as well, 40 – 60% in many cases. And you typically get recurring commission on subscription offers.
One reason for this, is because supplements are a natural product for monthly recurring revenue, so the brand keeps the customer for several months.
In addition the supplement, fitness and wellness category is evergreen. It’s one of those niches where people are always buying, all year long.
Many times individual supplement brands will have their own affiliate programs that you can become a part of.
Some of the bigger brand affiliate programs include:
- BodyBuilding.com
- GNC’s Affiliate service or you can get sell your dietary supplement on the GNC
- Market Health
Many affiliates allow you to promote a wide range of products, for offers in the health space in general, like digital workout content, skincare, and beauty, which goes beyond the traditional dietary supplement.
I would not recommend the Amazon affiliate network as the commission rate there is very low.
Some more bold affiliate supplement offers to promote can be found on:
If you’re selling dietary supplements as an affiliate you’ll need to get people to the offer. So you’ll need traffic.
When it comes to traffic you really only have two options.
Paid and Earned.
Paid traffic is traffic you pay for and use ads to drive people to your affiliate offer or supplement brand directly.
This is the fastest route for traffic.
The other option is earned traffic. Earned traffic is traffic you earn over time by putting in the work.
There are countless options here like search engine optimization with blogging or building a following on a social media platform.
Using Facebook to Sell Supplements
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer immense potential for marketing dietary supplements.
Unfortunately Facebook does not allow you to sell supplements on the Facebook Marketplace.
However, with its vast user base, Facebook ads can help boost your supplement sales.
By creating authentic and informative paid ads, you can attract dedicated customers and build brand loyalty with paid traffic.
Or you can build a Facebook group or community and market to that group. Although you’ll likely need to build up the group’s following first in order for it to generate any meaningful sales. And again, paid Facebook ads can help accelerate that.
Facebook marketing can be effective at driving website traffic and generate conversions.
Using Instagram to Sell Supplements
Instagram’s visually-driven platform provides a unique opportunity to showcase your supplements.
The typical supplement buyers are women 45+ so selling supplements on Instagram can be difficult.
But if your supplement brand is aimed toward a younger demographic, 25 – 35 year old women, Instagram can be a good traffic source.
By utilizing creative features such as hashtags, reels, stories, and collaborations with influencers, you can engage with a younger audience and enhance your product’s visibility in the competitive market.
This is another platform where you could go the paid or earned route. Building an audience over time before promotion your offers on the earned side, like on Facebook does take time and lots of posting and engagement on the platform before seeing any meaningful sales.
Although in my experience working with supplement clients, Instagram is a difficult platform to make work with supplements.
Typically what works well on Instagram is discounting and flash sales.
Discover the 3 funnels that can help your health supplement business succeed.
Listen to the Health Supplement Business Mastery Podcast for for dietary supplement entrepreneurs and marketers.
