Across all the online platforms, sales of BY-HEALTH’s nutraceuticals were over RMB$400m (US$60m), up 57% from last year.
On Tmall, it was the flagship store with the highest sales – exceeding RMB$170m (US$25m) amongst all the other stores selling nutraceuticals.
On JD.com, it was the bestselling brand, followed by Swisse, which is owned by fellow China company Health and Happiness. Schiff from the US settled took the third place. It added that its total sales from JD was RMB$70m (US$10m), up 53%.
BY-HEALTH said that aside from its same name product brand, the other brands such as Nature’s Bay, eye health brand Easeye, and probiotics brand Lifespace also saw sales grow by over 100% from last year.
Overseas brands
Overseas nutraceutical brands were also highly sought after, with food supplements the most popular category when it comes to the purchase of imported products.
This was the case on Tmall, where data shown to NutraIngredients-Asia showed that food supplements recorded the highest gross merchandise volume (GMV) amongst all imported goods.
This was followed by facial beauty tools and infant and toddler milk powder which took the third place.
Tmall’s data showed that online flagship stores of Swisse, US’s MoveFree, Muscletech, and GNC, UK’s Myprotein, and Australia’s Chemist Warehouse were amongst the top 10.
On JD, aside from Swisse and Schiff, imported brands Centrum, Caltrate, Muscletech, Blackmores, Abbott, and products from Nestle Health Science were amongst the 10 best-selling nutraceutical brands.
Overall, the nutrition and health products category saw sales increase over five times in the first 30 minutes on Nov 11, JD said.
“The pandemic has had a big impact on many industries, including health and nutrition products,” said Adeline Liu, a buyer in the Health and Nutrition products category for JD Worldwide – JD.com’s platform for imported products.
Liu also said that products that improve immunity and nourish health have been well received.
Categories such as long-term gastrointestinal management products such as probiotics, bone health products, beauty and anti-aging products are the fast-growing categories.
Outlier
Omega-3 from seal oil was an exceptionally well-received product, which was an unexpected development, according to Liu.
“Canadian seal oil was extremely well received. We didn’t expect that,” she said, adding that this could be because seal oil contained eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) – the last of which was not present in fish oil.
In terms of dosage format, she pointed out that consumers were seeking out vitamins in the form of chewy candy and nutritional beverages.
This is in line with observations with the China nutraceutical trade body, which said the imports of seal oil had jumped 213.9% in the first half of this year.