The year is 2003. Facebook is first launched as Facemash. Netflix announces it has reached its one-millionth subscriber, and Amazon sells only books. Times were simpler then.
And during this time, natural health stores were mainly small businesses run by people who loved alternative methods of health. They weren’t titans of business. They were just people who desired to share their hard-earned knowledge with other health conscious individuals.
Meanwhile, I was a newbie to natural healing and wasn’t sure what remedy to give my family when they came down with a cold. Blogs were a thing of the future, and websites dedicated to natural health education had yet to be invented. So if my family became sick, I went to my local health food store and consulted the owner. She always had an answer to our problems, which almost always included a potent bottle of mysterious supplements and a half hour of free education. Without fail, the supplements sped up our healing time, and the free health lessons fanned the flame of a blossoming passion within me.
Fast forward to 2018.
Social media rules the internet, Netflix revolutionized our TV viewing habits, and Amazon is the king of commerce. Retail stores feel the tide of customers turning towards internet goliaths for their shopping needs.
And why not? Why drive fifteen minutes in traffic to the store and stand in line to buy something when it can be bought cheaper online? And with free shipping, what is there to lose?
I’m the first one to admit I love shopping online. I love getting a knock on the door and having a delivery driver hand me a package. It’s Christmas anytime of the year.
But what about the small businesses? How do they compete? What about the invaluable, one-on-one, free advice from the business owner? It seems we have a problem.
The Problem
If you would’ve asked me in 2003 what problems I could foresee with building marketplaces online where you can buy literally anything, I would have said, “Absolutely nothing.”
But my answer would have been shortsighted. These massive online retailers may have solved a few problems, but in the process they have created more.
For instance, how do small businesses who create only modest batches of high-quality natural supplements compete with behemoths in the natural health marketplace? They don’t have the budget to market their product. The privately owned store in the strip shopping mall down the street carries these products, but if you aren’t a customer there, how will you ever know they exist?
They can place their products on one of those giant website marketplaces which seek to centralize consumer purchasing. But won’t they get lost in the shuffle? How can they stand out in a marketplace of millions of other products?
Surely there is better products out there. But who has the hours to spend searching the internet for them?
Thankfully, there are solutions to these problems.
The Solutions
There are several companies who recognize the problems internet purchasing has created. By carving out their own niches in the natural health marketplace, they have helped to increase the awareness of these often overlooked brands. Here are a few who I discovered recently and am super excited to try for my own family.
Solution #1: Love Goodly
Love Goodly is a subscription box service which delivers natural products every other month to your door. With a choice of two different subscriptions, Essential and VIP, you can choose which option of box would fit your needs. All products are full-sized, not a sample, and are deeply discounted when purchased through Love Goodly.
Found in each box are high quality beauty, skincare, health, and home products. You get to personalize your box by picking from one of fifteen values. Whatever you value the most in your purchasing experience, whether it’s non-GMO, vegan, made in the USA, etc., they have you covered. And with thirty plus product lines to choose from, your box will be tailor made for you.
What a fantastic way to try out different products you might have overlooked in the past.
Solution #2: Bulu Box
Bulu Box is another subscription box service which delivers sample sizes of natural health products monthly. Interestingly, they offer two different boxes: one box holds vitamins, supplements, healthy snacks, etc., the other box is their “weight loss box”. Included in the weight loss box are fat burners, meal replacements, snack alternatives, etc.
This service is available using four different payment plans, so it is very easy on the budget. And by providing sample sizes, the monthly cost of a box is the same as a large cup of overpriced coffee. The sample sizes also provide a way of trying a product without the guilt of throwing out a full sized product if you didn’t like it.
Box subscription services are a fantastic way to try new products and experience the fun of opening a package that has been delivered to your door.
Solution #3: Healthy-Finds
How many times have you wanted to try a new product but didn’t due to fear?
Are you afraid to try something new because you’re afraid it will be inferior?
Are you afraid it will be a waste of money?
Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a team of professionals like the “Good Housekeeping” experts who try out a product for you? If it passes, it gets their stamp of approval, and it can be trusted.
This is what Healthy-Finds is all about. Helping their subscribers discover new products without fear. They have a team of wellness experts who make sure each product passes their set of stringent guidelines. Once the brand qualifies for inclusion into the Healthy-Finds family, it is knighted with their coveted stamp of approval.
Without this stamp, you’re virtually buying products with your eyes closed. I know I’m signing up, because I hate throwing away hard-earned money. And I hate buying blind.
Want to learn more and sign up yourself? Check it out at Healthy-Finds.com.
The internet may have changed the way we buy, socialize, and watch TV. Who knows what another fifteen years will bring.
But armed with these solutions, we will discover an entirely new world of natural health products and brands. What a fantastic world we live in!