For all of the hype around wellness, sales are down for a select group of wellness brands.
A new analysis by purchase platform Attain shows slight decreases in average spend per user in 2024 from the previous year for fitness centers, supplements and non-alcoholic beer brand Athletic Brewing. Meanwhile, purchase frequency — the number of times consumers purchase a particular brand or product category in a given month — was down for Athletic, fitness centers and telemedicine provider Hims & Hers.
The dips suggest consumers are becoming more budget-conscious, a trend Attain has seen across multiple product categories.
The wellness industry has exploded in size and popularity in the past few years, driven in part by people’s search to live more healthfully during Covid. Globally, the wellness industry was worth $6.32 trillion in 2023, making it larger than the pharmaceutical industry. Culturally, wellness has become one of the most popular content categories on the internet, turning wellness personalities such as Mel Robbins, Andrew Huberman and Jay Shetty into stars with bestselling books, tens of millions of social media followers and some of the most popular podcasts in the medium. Wellness has even taken on a political dimension with political scion Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., being appointed Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services and his Make America Healthy Again movement helping propel President Trump’s re-election.
Not even the wellness industry is immune to the forces of the economy, however. The slight decreases in consumer activity in the wellness industry suggest that it, too, is being affected by consumers being more judicious about what they spend on in the face of sticky inflation and an uncertain economy.
Consumer spending during the holiday shopping season, a reliable indicator of the overall economy, was lackluster, Attain found, as many consumers decided to maintain or decrease their holiday spending in response to high prices caused by inflation. Inflation hasn’t let up in the new year, and the burgeoning trade war between the U.S. and several foreign countries, including Canada, Mexico and China, threatens to keep prices high or increase them even further.
Despite consumer spending on wellness softening, the category remains a large, healthy one that is expected to grow long-term. There are some bright spots, as well. Average spend per user slightly increased for Hims & Hers, and purchase frequency for supplements saw a similar bump. This data suggests that instead of spending on pricey fitness club memberships or healthy beer alternatives, consumers are focusing their wellness spending on self-care.
Health is wealth, as the saying goes, but in the wellness industry, those two things can also be in conflict.
