How to Sell Health Vitamins & Supplements on Amazon

Supplement sales are soaring on Amazon as shoppers prioritize their health and wellness needs, especially in recent years. Vitamins and supplements are primarily purchased to target any number of physical and mental consumer health needs — immunity, weight management, skin and hair health, stress, anxiety, sleep improvement and so much more. And as customers increasingly look for ways to improve their overall internal health, they are looking to Amazon as a way of both researching and purchasing their vitamins and supplements. In fact, Amazon captures 77% of all vitamin and supplement sales in the US (Source: Rakuten Intelligence).

With so many vitamin and supplement brands on the Amazon marketplace, getting started selling health products on Amazon can feel competitive and chaotic. However, jumping into the health products category can still be a lucrative success whether you’re a private label or a wholesaler, as long as you know where to begin.

Before beginning any venture on Amazon, it’s always good to do a pulse check of the market you’d be entering in and get a feel of what kind of competition is out there. Figure out what trending ingredients consumers are searching for in health-related products and what makes your supplement brand truly unique. Take a look at other brands’ reviews, content, product photos, storefronts and more to get an understanding of the Amazon landscape. In an incredibly saturated and diverse market, your brand will need to stand out so that when consumers are searching for your health products online, they can find what they are looking for and trust your brand.

Setting up a custom storefront on Amazon is one of the best things you can do as a health products brand to customize your content, create product listings and present consumers with an experience that develops trust by providing relevant information about your vitamins and supplements in one location.

When creating product listings, you should include all information about the health products you’re selling, including ingredients, instructions for use, side effects, testimonials if possible, and actual photos of the vitamins and supplements and their packaging. A consumer will feel more confident in purchasing supplements from a brand that explicitly shows the exact form of what they will be ingesting — whether capsules, tablets, powders, chewables, or tinctures — over a brand that doesn’t. Always remember that transparency is the way to go.

When selling vitamins and supplements online, especially on Amazon, there are certain rules and regulations that your brand and your products need to comply with. Since these are products that consumers are ingesting into their bodies, the language you use on your storefront and your product listings need to be both factual and FDA, FTC and Amazon-friendly. Some listings might be FDA and FTC-friendly, but could still get flagged by Amazon, so it’s best to know what guidelines to adhere to when creating vitamin and supplement listings on the Amazon marketplace. Many listings get pulled down if it presents any false claims or misleading information, so knowing how to deal with the red tape within Amazon and FDA regulations is crucial to allow your brand to succeed.

Like we mentioned before, transparency is key. If your product listing is taken down, it could hurt your chances of being able to continue selling on Amazon in the future, so you want to do it once and do it right before your product listings actually go live.

Here are a few simple tips to adhere to when selling vitamins and supplements on Amazon:

• Vitamins and supplements should always be sealed in the original packaging — they must never be sold opened or used.
• Any identifying codes on the packaging must be visible to a consumer.
• The labeling of the product should include the name of the company, product name, full ingredient list, quantity and serving size of the product, supplement facts panel, and information for the manufacturer and distributor of the product.
• If a product is FDA approved, it must include the FDA logo on the product label.
• Your product detail page should also include the name of the product, full ingredients list, along with images of the ingredient list, trademark and model number.
• In the title of your product, include ingredients and benefits of the supplements. Try to include the size, form of supplement, supply time of the product and whether or not your product is vegan, gluten-free or organic.
  
  
  For a full list of compliance guidelines, check out this helpful article on Amazon Seller Central.
  

It should come as no surprise that reviews are an important part of a consumer’s decision-making process, especially when it comes to ingestibles. They are also a huge contributor to your brand’s overall online health. By being transparent with product information, properly packaging and shipping your products, and providing seamless customer service, you’re likely to attract more positive reviews which increases your likelihood of customer retention and capturing new customers. Monitoring the reviews that come in will also give you insight to how shoppers are reacting to your brand and help you identify any areas of improvement.

One of the popular features Amazon offers for vitamins and supplements brands is Subscribe and Save, which was first introduced on the marketplace in 2007. It allows for customers to automatically set up scheduled deliveries of products with the incentive of a discount for the commitment. It’s a great tool for vitamins and supplements brands as customers increasingly shop with convenience in mind and are likely to want to “set it and forget it” to take one more thing off their plates.

We know selling vitamins and supplements on Amazon is extremely popular and there are new brands popping up every single day. So what types sell the best on the marketplace? We looked into current trends and discovered what people are searching for the most on Amazon when it comes to vitamins and supplements:

• Chlorophyll
• Ashwagandha
• Turmeric
• Fish Oil
• Magnesium
• Hyaluronic Acid
• Melatonin
• Biotin
• Vitamin A
• Spirula

As consumers become more health-conscious, we know they are seeking out vitamins and supplements online like never before. Selling supplements on Amazon can be a great way to reach a wider audience of customers and capture the potential growth Amazon has to offer. While understanding the specific rules and regulations of selling vitamins and supplements on Amazon takes some time, navigating through the marketplace can reap massive benefits.

Navigating the Amazon marketplace is actually our bread and butter. At Front Row, we have exclusive partnerships with over 45 health, wellness and beauty brands on Amazon, and we offer a collaborative partnership that makes marketplace management simple. As a full-service agency with all capabilities in-house, we are fully invested in your success from day one and provide a dedicated team of experts in SEO, content, PPC, logistics, and more to tackle it all. That means setting up your storefront, optimizing your listings, creating custom branded content that is compliant, setting up PPC campaigns, fulfilling orders and storing inventory and monitoring your online presence.