Tina Smith: 0:00

I mean there have been some good studies around both music and scents, where certain scents will get you to move forward or make purchasing decisions. There's a really famous one from Germany. I'll find it and link it in the show notes. But if you can decide what vibe you're wanting people to feel when they come in the door and you guys know this because spas do it all the time it makes you feel a certain way when they have that music in the background. Those sounds of like a forest, a rainforest or like bubbling water in the background, and they use scents very well to either perk you up or calm you down and make you feel relaxed. Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer podcast. I'm Tina.

Amanda Ballard: 0:53

And I'm Amanda, and we're here to make marketing easier for natural products businesses so you can reach more people and change more lives. Hey everyone, welcome back to Natural Products Marketer. Today we are going to be talking about some retail trends. Now, my dear friend, tina, is a data nerd, and so she lives for this kind of stuff. I feel like the farmer's almanac was made for her, so this is the perfect thing for her to kind of take the lead on and show some of the things that she found interesting, as she was diving into a lot of these trends, and then we want to kind of just look at what all of this really means for you guys. So, tina, what are you seeing? What was most interesting in these trends that you were seeing?

Tina Smith: 1:42

Okay, so some of these are from Farmers Almanac, some of them from different research reports like Deloitte, and then others from Spins, and I just figured I've been looking at these, this data and these trends, and I told you, Amanda, I had little post it notes like all in my notebook.

Tina Smith: 2:01

With every time I see one of these, I'm like jotting it down and it makes me think of a million different connections that we can make for retailers or the product manufacturers and natural products industry, and I figured we could sit and go through at least some of them. There's no way we're getting to all my little data nuggets today, but we can go through some of them and say, all right, it's been over six months of the year by the time this podcast comes out. It's going to be even further down the road and the question is like how much of this really has held true, is holding true, and what does that mean? And how can you use this data in your retail store or in your manufacturing facility to help you take advantage of the trends that are coming our way and that might be coming our way in 2025 as well? So let's just dive in All right.

Amanda Ballard: 2:53

So what you got? What's number one?

Tina Smith: 2:55

Yeah, so adaptogenic drinks this is from the Farmers Almanac. It was like something to watch Botanical infused beverages to aid in relaxation without the use of alcohol. It feels to me like there is this, or has been, a groundswell around finding non-alcohol related beverages where you can do celebrations and have a great time without using alcohol. The conversation then sort of turned toward well, why are we using alcohol? And mostly it's to numb or anti-anxiety, and so I think that's where the botanical infused ingredients started coming into play. So are there things that you can use to help you relax? I've seen a ton of these with like magnesium in them, theanine, which is another big product that you and I were just talking about, and other things to help us just sort of calm down and feel relaxed without having to drink alcohol.

Tina Smith: 3:59

I think this trend will continue. I've seen adaptive drinks really work in the retail industries, especially sort of on the way out. If you've got those fridges on the way out the door, they're an extra basket ad. I mean, you tell me, what are you seeing in the retail stores? Does that feel right?

Amanda Ballard: 4:17

Yeah, absolutely, and there's more and more coming on the market and I think for a long time a lot of companies struggled with the taste getting that right, because some of those adaptogens don't have the best flavor. So I think there's been a big improvement in those types of drinks in the past couple years and I think we're only going to see that improve. And just the idea of like mocktails in general, I know are just becoming bigger and bigger. We're seeing tons of uptick in traffic around mocktails on different websites and I think you know I had a lot of friends participate in dry January and all sorts of things like that. So I think that that trend is definitely here to stay.

Tina Smith: 5:02

Yeah. And so here's when I look up keyword research. I'm a huge fan. When I look up mocktails, it was like the chart kind of goes. It dipped a little bit and then it spiked and now it's come down a bit, but it's trending back up again. So all that means to me is that there's some variability in how much people are talking about things like mocktails. I do think it spikes every January, but I also think that we're having more things like dry June.

Tina Smith: 5:33

So people are either spreading it out, substituting it for another month, or they're saying, hey, I can do more than one month, I can do January, I can do June, I can do July, something like that, I can do January, I can do June, I can do July, something like that. And they're adding to their dry days. And then, of course, you've got plenty of people who are just going without. So some of our friends at 221BC Kombucha they're a great non-alcoholic substitute, especially for social moments and that sort of thing they're coming out with mocktail recipes all the time, which is great, and getting some traffic with those online.

Tina Smith: 6:11

And I think what we're hearing from some of their customers is hey, my husband drinks less, so maybe it's not about like complete overtake of alcoholic beverages, but you might drink less if you're drinking some of these and if you have some of those adaptogens or honestly, like 2-2-1 uses, botanicals without adding any lab created botanicals to the recipes, and things like lavender, which are just normally calming. And then you've got those other adaptogen drinks that are really adding magnesium or theanine or something else like that. So you've got your completely natural ones and then those that are adding lab created things. But again, I think, on your way out, a quick cooler by the register easy basket, add by the register easy basket, ad and um I you know, I think Alina at um MassDales was saying what a great win that was by adding a cooler with some of those adaptogen beverages for people to pick up on their way out. Super convenience item. I think it works for sure, okay.

Amanda Ballard: 7:22

So next point um, our next trend I should say uh is the willingness of people to share medical data. Tell me about this.

Tina Smith: 7:32

Yeah, so there was something again farmer's almanac. I love it. 42% of shoppers would share some medical data with grocers in order to get food recommendations, and what I think about that is like, hey, I have IBS, or I am gluten sensitive, or there's some other underlying medical condition that they're sharing with their grocers to get recommendations. Oh, try this as a substitute for that.

Tina Smith: 7:58

What I found interesting about that is, even if you don't have food in your supplement retail store, people are willing to share their information. If you don't have food in your supplement retail store, people are willing to share their information if you give them a valuable insight of something that they can use or is helpful to them. So 42% of people are just ready to be open and transparent. And you know, maybe you don't always want that, but the truth is that people are willing to share their information. It doesn't necessarily have to be medical, but what they're looking for is a way to offload some of this decision making that feels really important, and they don't want to have to make those decisions by themselves, and they want trusted experts to help them with that. And that data comes directly from Deloitte Fresh Food Consumer Survey. So I think this consultative approach that most of our retailers have in their stores is everything that we thought it would be.

Tina Smith: 9:00

It's a huge differentiator and consumers will continue to ask for suggestions, recommendations and have an expert in the field sort of help them make good choices.

Amanda Ballard: 9:19

Yeah, where he was talking about kind of like cross merchandising, without having to cross merchandise, just by being able to do these upsells and have these conversations with a customer, where it's like, hey, maybe you were sampling collagen that day. And they're like, oh yeah, I've seen something about like collagen and coffee. Does that actually work well? Does that damage the collagen? Maybe you can kind of explain how that works but also be like, hey, did you know that we have some great organic coffee? Just, it's the next aisle over, let me just walk you over there.

Amanda Ballard: 9:55

It doesn't even have to be right next to them, but just having those, those things in your store that are common. Obviously you have to have the square footage and be able to accommodate a lot of those things. But even if you don't just be like, hey, you know we don't have the space to accommodate all of the requests that we get for food, but you know, here's a brand that we highly, highly recommend and maybe we could even special order it for you if we can get it at a better price than what you could get online or something like that. So I think, I think, just being able to have those conversations and be equip your staff with the knowledge that they need to have those conversations. Even if you don't have the products in your physical store. Or they're right, they're not right next to you know, the coffee and the collagen aren't right next to each other.

Tina Smith: 10:43

It doesn't have to be that way you know, the coffee and the collagen aren't right next to each other. It doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, and you know, speaking of coffee, my next stat is completely around people who drink a complimentary cup of coffee, caffeinated coffee, before they shop spend more money, they buy more items while they're in your store and I think there's a couple of things that are going on honestly. But they did have a control group for this, because they also offered decaf coffee and water and people that had that caffeinated coffee spent more money and bought more product.

Tina Smith: 11:15

Um, I think there's a demoing effect. So if you demo something, you're more likely to buy it, and I think having demos on a regular basis we make the recommendation of, you know, once every two weeks, once a week is ideal. If you're demoing something, it's a reason for someone to get off their couch and come into your store. But also people usually there's they build bigger baskets whenever you do my products, um, because they get that taste. And then there's also that, um, that reciprocation that they feel like you've given them something, so they need to give you something going on there and then, hey, you know, caffeine will propel you forward to buy things. So you know we were talking about it. Maybe we shouldn't be drinking so much coffee before we go on our shopping spree.

Amanda Ballard: 12:08

Yeah, my, my, my bank account might thank me for that. So I might have to switch to decaf. But don't switch to decaf if you're a retailer.

Tina Smith: 12:16

That's right and you know. It just makes me think of, like this bio coffee that a lot of the retailers have, which is a coffee substitute, and I think, even though it's not actually caffeinated, that it could be a good thing to demo. We have seen it demoed and still increased sales overall. So I think just demoing in the first place or hey, if you've got some adaptogen drinks that have energy in them, go ahead, demo those and you might see some bigger baskets accruing per customer.

Amanda Ballard: 12:57

Yeah, and you know, there's something too about coffee that made me think about the second point. Even people that don't like coffee are attracted to the smell of coffee, and so I don't know if there's something to that. But our next point was about people using scent styling fragrances for rooms. So I'm curious if that that coffee smell like draws people in and how the kind of the science of this aroma therapy type stuff kind of plays into buying decisions.

Tina Smith: 13:32

Yeah, both I mean there have been some good studies around both music and scents, where certain scents will get you to move forward or make purchasing decisions. There's a really famous one from Germany. I'll find it and link it in the show notes. But if you can decide what vibe you're wanting people to feel when they come in the door and you guys know this because spas do it all the time it makes you feel a certain way when they have that music in the background. Those sounds of like a forest or rainforest or like bubbling water in the background, and they use scents very well to either perk you up or calm you down and make you feel relaxed. Try them out.

Tina Smith: 14:21

We do have clients, retailers, who do diffusers in their stores every day, and a lot of times they're doing it for immunity. But I think you could test different fragrances and see what wakes people up and gets people's attention. I'll tell you orange and lemongrass, those are two flavors that perk people up and gets people's attention. I'll tell you orange and lemongrass, those are two flavors that perk people up and give them extra energy. So I would test that and then see even cinnamon those fragrances really get people more alert versus having like a lavender kind of smell going on there where it starts to chill you out. I bet you're going to see more purchases on the orange lemon cinnamon flavor out. I bet you're going to see more purchases on the orange lemon cinnamon flavor days.

Amanda Ballard: 15:05

And you know it's interesting, I actually came across a company that, just like their whole entire business model, is selling fragrances for retail locations and they have almost like a like this Febreze plugins. They'll put them all over your store to just create whatever custom smell you want. So if you are in your bakery and maybe you aren't baking, you know your your homemade bread that morning, you could still have that homemade bread smell kind of simulated. It was outrageously expensive. So, um, but I think essential oils are a great place to start as just kind of an experiment on that. But, um, there definitely is something to this whole scent leading to purchase um idea.

Tina Smith: 15:57

Yeah, and this is intuitive and easy. The reason it's easy is because most of the retailers carry essential oils, so why not just use them, cause you've got them already? But second, this is intuitive because you know when it's time to sell your house. What do they tell you? Big fresh cookies. Or half diffuse a scent in your home that makes it feel homey. So, whatever that feeling you're trying to, whatever vibe you want your customers to feel as soon as they walk in that store that makes them feel more like oh, this is my place, this is the place that aligns with what I'm trying to do right now. I think those are the right sense to try. So in a home, of course, it's baked goods. If you're trying to sell baked goods, it would be baked goods. But think around those ideas like what is going to most align with what the customer wants or needs right now and give it a try. I think it's a great idea.

Amanda Ballard: 16:57

Yeah. So speaking of aligning like wants and needs, I think that's kind of a good segue into this next set of trends that we found about what workers are wanting out of their employers. So what were some interesting things that you saw in in these reports?

Tina Smith: 17:16

Yeah. So I love looking at what workers want, because workers are just people. So even if you don't have a worker which I can't imagine running a retail store without a worker but if it's just you, these are things your customers want as well. So I think you can use the data in that way, but definitely you've got people that are working for you. If you're in a retail store, I pray you do, and if you don't, you're working towards that right.

Tina Smith: 17:42

But what workers want?

Tina Smith: 17:44

Cards prepaid by the employer so that they can have more healthy meals on their own, or groceries.

Tina Smith: 17:50

But if you're a retailer and you carry food, there are opportunities they just abound for you to give extra discounts on food and groceries to your employees and or give them cards that are hey, shop at the store, and that way you're not losing out anything on that.

Tina Smith: 18:09

It's money that's reinvested right back into your store and for your products. And the other reason that this is a good idea is because we have found that the best way to sell product or to get your employees to sell product in your store is to let them try it. So this is a perfect way for them to demo some of your meals or grocery items as well. But if not, look, they've got those boxes of prepared foods and a prepaid card toward box delivered meals to their homes could be a great way to show employees that you care, to add an extra benefit that you know someone else doesn't have somewhere else. Employees want four day work weeks, which is interesting when it comes to retail, because you guys are open six or seven days a week and so that staffing becomes very difficult.

Tina Smith: 19:03

I would love to know, if anyone's implementing a four-day work week in the retail store and just how it works. I'm sure it can be done, but I bet it would be a pretty difficult thing to do. But I think that's true. I would love a four-day work week, honestly, and hey, if you're listening to this vote, I'd love to hear from you Would you love a four-day work week? But the third thing that came up in this survey was financial wellness programs to help with retirement planning, budgeting, debt management, investment advice.

Tina Smith: 19:41

And again I go back to yes, this is something your workers want. It will help them pay more attention to your customers, because if they're worried about like debt or how they're going to pay for their mortgage next month, it's going to be very difficult to concentrate on customer service. But I think just your customers at large will want this, and the reason I think this is cool and important is because these are great ways to do partnerships. So even the prepaid boxes, meal boxes or a meal delivery service or something like that, these are great ways for you to pair with another brand or partner with another brand and say this is brought to you by Instacart and us. Now, I don't know if Instacart is going to be really excited about partnering with a small retail store, maybe, but to offer some kind of giveaway. I think those are great ideas.

Tina Smith: 20:34

And financial wellness programs having look, education events, education events, education events they're a great way to keep things fresh and happening in your store. And so financial wellness if that's something that your employees want, it's something your customers want too. So just because they're not like a nutritionist or an acupuncturist or something like that, doesn't mean that you can't bring someone in, and I'm sure there's an accounting firm in your area that may not even know that you exist yet. But if you were to say, hey, can you come educate my employees and my customers I, they're going to find out about your store. They might tell their customers that you're there and that they're going to be doing an educational event at your space, and then you can have a whole new group of people who never even knew you existed, with one financial education class.

Amanda Ballard: 21:29

Right, and it could be just you know, we talk about that one-to-many approach all the time of you know, if you were to invite in, you know, an investment firm that's great at financial planning and things like that, you could even set up some sort of referral bonus Like, hey, every time you bring someone into, every time you're having a meeting with somebody about their, their portfolio, it's like, hey, give them a 20% off gift certificate to to the store next time they come in, and it can just be this natural referral source for you.

Tina Smith: 22:05

Yeah, so good. I love one to many opportunities, and when I say one to many, it's three words and it's not T-O-O, it's not one to many, it's one person brings you many people to your table, and that's exactly what we're talking about. So we talk about these joint ventures and partnerships all the time, because getting customer by customer by customer is a way that you can grow. It takes more money, more effort, more resources to make that happen. Versus you speak to one person who tells a lot of people about your business, your products, your services. That is so much easier to bring in repeat customers over and over and to fill your pipeline versus waiting on the one by one, by one to pay off. So we're always looking for those opportunities. We don't neglect the one to one, but we love the one to many opportunities. So educational events are one great way to partner with people in your community and to show the community that you care too. So you're investing in the community while you're also finding these partnerships. So she's a great way to do outreach for sure.

Amanda Ballard: 23:21

Yeah, yeah. And the next point I'm glad we kind of ended on community, because I feel like most of the retailers that we're talking with, and even these manufacturers that we're talking with, they have a lot of community and family values. And this next trend that we saw was really, really interesting. It said that 91% of families report less stress after sharing a meal together, and I feel like that's a huge thing that these retailers in particular can emphasize in their marketing. You know, if they're talking about less stress, you know, obviously that's literally a free thing that you can do with your family to help you lower your stress levels. So nice that they can offer you a tip without asking you to spend any money. But also, just if you have groceries in your store, it's like, hey, like, put together family meal kits, you know, put together recipe cards for how you could feed your family on a budget. We know we're talking about financial wellness. And, you know, reducing stress, it's like here's a way to feed your family for under 20 bucks and reduce stress, build your bond, all of these things, all of the. You know there's a way to feed your family for under 20 bucks and reduce stress. Build your bond, all of these things, all of the you know there's that there's a functional medicine tree, and I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with that concept.

Amanda Ballard: 24:37

But it's all about getting to the root issues of of your health, because at the end of the day, you're either not sleeping, your relationships are out of whack you know something along those lines, and I think that relationships are such a huge part of our health. So I think that that's a really, really important thing that we can focus on is just how are your relationships? How's your family life? How's your you know, your relationship with your significant other? Is that leading to extra stress in your life? How can we help you with that? And I know a lot of our stores that we work with that do these, you know, consultations and have that consultative approach like they're asking those questions. So I think this would be a great thing to just add into your toolbox of hey, just eat dinner with your family, mm-hmm.

Tina Smith: 25:27

Add into your toolbox of hey, just eat dinner with your family, yeah, well, and since we were talking about, workers want those prepaid cards or, you know, mailboxes, all those things. It's a great way to pull all of these pieces together. You could even say 91% of families report less stress after sharing a meal together. Have a meal on us, you know. Just wrap it all up and bring it back home to the fact that you are trying to help people have a well-rounded view of their health and wellness and that you care about their relationships and their connections and the community around you as much as you care about making money off your supplements or whatever it is that drives your revenue. And I think people will be grateful for that and they'll feel like you care about them more than you care about your revenue. And I think that's mostly true, anyway, for the types of retailers that we work with, and they're always looking for ways to bring all these pieces together. This is just. It feels like a really easy one to share this data with people and be like hey, here, here it is on us. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so I think we said we were going to spend about half an hour 20 minutes to half an hour going through data and look, we got through maybe five or six things on my list, and I can go through so many more and we'll do this again, for sure. But I don't want to overwhelm people because I think they got some really good tactics from the information that we just shared.

Tina Smith: 27:05

Pulling all these pieces together from the information that we just shared. Pulling all these pieces together focusing on the people part. Of course, these are things workers want, but they're just people. It's exactly what people all around you want Focusing on that full health and wellness picture and building community and being the consultants that are experts, that sort of take the load off people making difficult decisions in their life, because I think we all have some decision fatigue for sure, and so I think those are a lot of tactics that people can pull out and put into play immediately. And put into play immediately If you do one thing that we've talked about put a cooler right in front of your register so people can grab these adaptogenic drinks on their way out. Get some 2-2-1 BC kombucha in your store and plenty of other brands as well that can fill that cooler and people will grab and go.

Amanda Ballard: 28:06

For sure It'll build bigger baskets on their way out and give them caffeine when they walk in.

Tina Smith: 28:13

Oh yeah, lots of demos, lots of demos.

Amanda Ballard: 28:17

So you get a drink when you come in and get a drink when you go out.

Tina Smith: 28:20

That's right. If you give a small drink, when they come in, they will grab a drink on their way out. Small drink when they come in, they will grab a drink on their way out. So our goal here is to help people build their retail business while they care for people, and so I think just these few trends that we're talking about, they're easy things that you can implement to take advantage of the trends that are happening naturally around you.

Amanda Ballard: 28:49

Thanks so much for listening to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast. We hope you found this episode to be super helpful. Make sure you check out the show notes for any of those valuable resources that we mentioned on today's episode.

Tina Smith: 29:00

And, before you go, we would love for you to give us a review. Follow, like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening today, and make sure you join us for our next episode, where we give you more marketing tips so that you can reach more people and change more lives.