Retail Recon: Probiotics on Amazon

The Probiotics category is quite large, with monthly sales of over $75 million a month and dominated by a few significant players.

As part of our Retail Recon series, we’ll look closely at the sales trends around these nutritional supplements, how the winners win, and how the customer shops for probiotics.  You'll also see examples of our favorite listings and discover what the top products may offer over the lower-performing competition.

A Quick Overview of Probiotics on Amazon

Amazon shoppers spend around $130 million a month on vitamin and mineral supplements. Probiotics is a subcategory of this supplement category.  Amazon has nearly 3,000 probiotics products, but the top 10 listings are grabbing up most of the monthly revenue. 

Supplement shoppers place high importance on ratings and reviews when choosing a product.  The average rating in this category is 4.5 stars and, on average, listings have several hundred reviews each.

A Look at 10 Top-Selling Probiotic Listings

Despite a crowded landscape that includes around 3,000 products, the top 10 listings are generating 15% of sales in the probiotic category. 

Shoppers Prefer Shelf Stable Choices in Convenient Form Factors

Shoppers seem to gravitate to the mid-range price point in Probiotics, which is $25-30, and the top 2 sellers make up 99% of the sales in this price range.

When breaking down the category by price per serving, mid-range price still wins.  Listings priced at $1 - 1.50 per serving nab the bulk of the sales with a steep drop off in sales at the more premium price of $2 per serving and up.

While the category offers a variety of form factors, including capsule, packet, and powder scoop servings, shoppers want the capsules.  Capsules dominate sales in Probiotics. The most popular counts are 30, 60, and 100-count bottles.

Consumers may associate a product's CFU, colony-forming unit, with efficacy.  Behavior among Amazon shoppers aligns with commonly held best practices that CFU counts higher than 50 billion are not generally recommended.  Most category revenue goes to products with 60 billion or less CFU.

Among the top listings in Probiotics, 14 of 20 do not require refrigeration.  Shoppers seem to prefer the route with less hassle/cold chain complexity when ordering online.

Some niche product claims among the best-selling listings include vaginal health, weight loss, and respiratory benefit claims.  But most offers stick to a more general product benefit message of digestive health.

How Brands Talk About Probiotics

There are a few key components to what makes a winner on Amazon:

• Killer marketing to drive momentum and market share
• A strong digital shelf to attract, engage and convert shoppers
• Clear product differentiation to set brands apart from the competitors
• Smooth fundamentals like inventory availability and price to avoid hard sales stops

Let’s see how some of the top Male Fertility Supplements are doing on these, starting with…

🏆Top Probiotic Seller🏆

Image Source: Amazon.com

Visbiome has great-looking, highly-branded content on their listings, brand store, and A+ Content.  They run a strong PPC strategy with sponsored products and brand campaigns.  The primary listing includes multiple pack count offerings and powder/capsules.  

Visbiome uses listing images to increase buyer confidence with a clear understanding of how the refrigerated item is shipped.

Image source: Amazon.com

They have almost 3,000 reviews, and the product rating is high.  Just 3% of reviews are one-star and include complaints about efficacy and side effects.

Next, let’s look at a listing with some of the best visuals in the category. We’re calling it our…

😎Best Dressed😎

Image source: Amazon.com

The Physician's CHOICE listing utilizes tons of visuals, including clean, well-designed infographic listing images, scannable A+ content, and six videos on the listing page.  

Image source: Amazon.com

Physicians CHOICE has amassed a whopping 126,000 reviews while maintaining a 4.5-star rating.  The highest marks were given to the brand by reviewers who praised its efficacy. The lowest marks were for side effects and allergic reactions. 

Rounding out our three brand callouts is our…

🏅Honorable Mention🏅

Image source: Amazon.com

Culturelle uses strong claims paired with approachable and easy-to-understand issue management for a strong listing strategy.  The listing includes videos and has multiple pack count offerings and bundles.

Image source: Amazon.com

Key Takeaways for Probiotics Listings

• The Probiotics category is a high sales volume category, but competition is tough, and a few major players dominate the sales.
• The best-selling listings promote general probiotic benefits though the category does contain several more niche offerings tailored to specific illnesses or symptoms.
• The creative in this category among the top players is strong, with listings typically including strong claims, videos, precise information on formulation/strains, and reasons to believe.
• Because of the wide range of products in the Probiotics category, a robust digital shelf strategy should include an A/B testing program to identify the most engaging and highest-converting product positioning.

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