January is not many people’s favourite month of the year, unless you work for a credit card business, I guess. But the start to 2025 has been a particularly bad one, with horrendous fires in Los Angeles and Ghana, and our own problems with flooding and storms closer to home.
Of course, there are always things that we do to make ourselves miserable – wars, financial crises, and social unrest across the globe. But it seems that this year so far, it is nature, under the influence of global warming or not, which has a particular grudge to settle with us.
However not all is gloom in the health market. There are the annual resolutions, health kicks, diets, and exercise fads to fill our shelves with. And it always seems to me that when nature gets angry with us, then it is nature that we turn to for our comfort and our care. Increasingly so.
Perhaps, we feel a oneness with nature, a reminder of, and a respect for, nature as a force for good, as well as bad. Increasingly, people are looking to more than pain relief and plasters for their problems. They are turning to more holistic wellbeing and lifestyle solutions. We walk, we hike, we cycle our country sides, and we seek out its plants, and its secrets, to keep ourselves well.
Overall, it is our local healthcare shops that would seem ideally placed to be wellbeing destinations, in such times. And it is totally within the realm of these stores to complete the circle for all their customers’ natural needs.
They must keep their expertise in their core healthcare, with organic foods and remedies, health supplements, natural beauty and cosmetics, vitamins & medicines, local and sustainable essentials in clothing and lifestyle accessories.
But they can also become Medical Support Hubs, Counselling Centres, Sleep Experts, Food & Nutrition Kitchens, Fitness Clubs, Community Sports and Activity Centres, Spas, natural relaxation spaces, destinations for holistic and alternative medicines, salons for beauty services, hairdressing and manicures, beauty classes, demonstrations, and makeovers.
And they must absolutely be the best place in town for a well-made cup of tea, a locally sourced sandwich, a slice of artisan cake, and of course, a friendly consultation, a leisurely chat, or a lively community event.
Of course, for any type of consumer good or service, there is no shortage of competition willing to supply and undercut on anything from exercise bikes to homeopathic candles and café lattes.
But what the customer is looking for most today is trust and knowledge, and those are things that people are less likely to seek and find online, or from strangers. It is the local health shop that has these attributes and qualities.
It is also an age of collaboration and partnerships. So, whilst owners of health shops have an astounding and varied expertise across many areas of wellbeing with education, teaching, and practical experiences, they need not do everything. Their specialist skills can be supplemented through professional collaborations, with like-minded and trustworthy businesses and individuals to offer a single and seamless proposition.
The health shop has the potential to offer so many things that will offset, sooth, and treat whatever the natural world has to throw at us.
Safeguard your trust and keep your customers safe.
Get this year right, and health shops will not be searching for footfall in the months ahead. They will be trying to stop customers from breaking down their doors!