Digital health consumers are emerging as a significant cohort within the consumer health marketplace, and are increasingly tracking health and fitness while buying more consumer health products online. This consumer is hard to engage with, but firms can now access new ways to leverage social media, health apps, micro-influencers and voice commerce to capture consumers’ attention, especially in markets where the digital health consumer is ascendant, like South Korea, the UK, China and the US.
Below are the key findings from Euromonitor’s latest global briefing about this topic:
Who is the Digital Health Consumer? Digital health consumers are tech savvy connected consumers who are buying more consumer health products online, especially vitamins and dietary supplements (VDS), while accessing health education, tracking health and fitness with digital devices, and using apps to fill in prescription orders for pick up (or delivery). These consumers expect consumer health firms to “get them” and understand their health needs quickly.
How to engage the Digital Health Consumer? During the new shopper journey, consumer health firms are expected to know digital health consumers’ needs, and add value before, during and after a purchase. Companies have new ways to engage consumers while also helping them to get healthier, and talk to the consumer in their language through stories and people they can relate to.
Ways to engage the Digital Health Consumer
Why is Consumer Health mobile commerce more relevant? Whilst consumer health online sales are still only a fraction of total consumer health value sales, it is expected that this channel will continue growing fast, led by key global online retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba, and regional ones, such as The Hut Group in Europe and 11Street in South Korea. This online consumer health demand is increasingly happening through mobile phone purchases.
Where is the next Digital Health Consumer? To identify where the Digital Health Consumer is projected to demand online consumer health products at the fastest pace, Euromonitor International leverages its proprietary Digital Consumer Index forecast, and matches it with the consumer health online sales forecasts in 50 countries. Through this process, four markets were identified as the next major markets of significance for online consumer health expansion: the US, China, South Korea and the UK.
Digital Health Consumer Future Online Demand
The 2017 Digital Consumer Index leverages 2,500 data points to assist clients with market prioritization exercises for digital initiatives. It consists of two central components: a Digital Connectivity Index and a Connected Commerce Index. The Digital Consumer Index score (out of 100 points) reflects the current or forecasted readiness of 50 countries worldwide.