Asia’s diverse e-commerce platforms drive supplement industry growth

This was according to experts speaking at "Exploring Export Opportunities in APAC's Booming Health and Wellness Market," a discussion sponsored by the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA) in partnership with the International Trade Administration, U.S. Commercial Service and WPIC Marketing and Technologies.

“Cross-border e-commerce allows dietary supplement brands to sell to consumers, bypassing traditional regulatory hurdles,” said Daniel Mabey, Asia president and director of strategic markets at UNPA. “Cross-border e-commerce utilizes free trade zones to facilitate sells onto platforms. If you're exporting to China or other markets, your products are held in bonded warehouses and then distributed through to the users.”

Maby added that to operate a storefront on these e-commerce platforms, companies must work with a trade partner or e-commerce accelerator to navigate the ins and outs of these platforms.

In 2023, the health products market size in China was nearly $60 billion and e-commerce was 46% of this market, said Peter McMath, chief revenue officer at WPIC Marketing + Technologies, a firm dedicated to helping brands successfully enter and expand in the Asian markets through e-commerce.

“The rise of social commerce has been very dominant within mainland China, as opposed to some of the more omnichannel opportunities,” he said. “This is a very exciting market. The cross-border infrastructure allows brands to access this ultimately massive market through a handful of e-commerce channels that can be very simple to activate.”

This infrastructure includes platforms such as Tmall, JD and Douyin. Between 2023 to 2024, these platforms have experienced rapid user growth. Specifically, Douyin, the Chinese counterpart to TikTok, has grown by more than 133% in the last year.

Wellness trends​

Supplement sales growth in China outpaces the general economic growth in the country, according to McMath. Rising income levels and higher disposable income among a younger generation are fueling the rise in supplement consumption.  

In mainland China, U.S. companies hold about a 16.7% market share, just behind Australia at 20%, making the two countries dominant foreign players inside the country.

McMath said fish oil and iron categories had nearly 50% year-over-year growth. Probiotics sales have increased in the past three to five years. Trends around beauty, immunity and mobility for the aging population have been strong drivers of the market, he added.

“We're seeing very interesting pockets of really impressive strong double-digit, triple-digit growth with a number of key categories… in Q3, fish oil exceeded about $270 million in revenues, oral nutrition at $267 million.”

APAC ​

Japan and South Korea are catching up to the e-commerce penetration seen in China. Japan is the third largest supplement market after the U.S. and China and has a different regulatory landscape than mainland China. It also has a sizable aging population, where 22% of its people are over the age of 70, and 27% are in their 60s. Among older adults, almost 60% consume a supplement each day.

The top three e-commerce sites the Japanese may use to buy supplements include Amazon Japan, Rakuten Ichiba and DMM. As for Korea, major platforms driving supplement sales are Coupang and Naver.

Southeast Asia’s e-commerce platform relies more heavily on social media ecosystems such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, McMath said.

“Marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada are really leading the charge in markets like Singapore, which saw $2.3 billion in supplement sales in 2023,” he noted. “When we look at all of this opportunity, the next, general question is what do we do about it? How do we access this? How do we ultimately connect to our consumer?”