Safe, effective message resonates with shoppers

Safe and effective. Those are the selling points that homeopathy has been emphasizing with mass consumers, and it’s working. Sales of homeopathic products as measured by SPINSscan across food, drug and mass (excluding Walmart) were up 16%, reaching a sales base of $126.1 million. That’s 2.5 times larger than the natural channel, where consumers actually place the fact that a medicine is homeopathic higher up on their 
decision matrix.


Mass consumers may never be ready to really dive into how homeopathic products work, but then again, they never questioned how aspirin worked, either. It’s experience with the products that’s influencing sales of homeopathic products in mass. “The biggest driver is pediatric cough and cold,” said Dale Nepsa, president of Hyland’s. And Hyland’s will be parlaying that success into an adult cough-cold line called Defend for next season, he said.


Analgesics like arnica will be the next big category for homeopathy in mass, Nepsa added. It’s already trending 28.5% growth in the past year. “Arnica is a growth area. ... It’s been the No. 1-
selling [pain] remedy in natural food stores for years,” he said. “Eventually it’s going to be a big seller in FDM. ... But the [sales] explosion is two to three years away.”

The article above is part of the DSN Category Review Series. For the complete Homeopathy Buy-In Report, including extensive charts, data and more analysis, click here.