Raising Supplement Standards

Dietary supplements are a big seller. Retailers need to employ stricter standards for their store brands to ensure continued success.

GNC took an extremely big first step.

The nation’s largest dietary supplement retailer announced in late March that it was installing aggressive new testing standards in response to claims by the New York State attorney general’s office that certain store brands contained little or none of the labeled medicinal herbs.

According to an article in Newsday, a Long Island, N.Y. daily newspaper, GNC officials said that  its products were in full compliance with the Food and Drug Administration’s “good manufacturing practices.” However the company added that it would expand its testing processes deeper into its supply chain. Newsday reported that the company has agreed to trace the sources of ingredients and perform DNA testing on herbs when necessary.

This is a great first move and one that is needed to alleviate any consumer concerns about supplements, especially after the announcement by the State of New York in February that called out Walmart, Target and Walgreens, in addition to GNC, about their store brand supplements. Of course, these three other retailers must take steps to alleviate their consumers’ concerns as well, and all of them have to stick to a plan that ensures that consumers are actually getting something when they purchase supplements at their stores.

Any other retailers, including supermarket chains, which carry supplements must ensure that the products on their shelves are from reputable companies that stand behind them. There are a lot of good companies out there to partner with. Now is not the time to be penny wise, pound foolish.

As I discussed in this space in March, the bottom line is that supplements have always been a tricky category for retailers. Do they work, how do they work and even how fast do they work are some of the questions many have about supplements. To be honest, I do not have a legitimate answer. But this is big business to retailers and, more importantly, it results in big sales and profits. So it is vital that retailers get to the bottom of this situation and make their shoppers feel comfortable with their supplement offerings as well as any other products in their stores.

The guy who invented the Pet Rock died recently. For those who do not know or remember, Gary Dahl took the crazy idea of selling common rocks—purchased for pennies from a Mexican company—for about $4 each and made a million or two in just a matter of months. I remember the frenzy over these things quite well, with a number of friends and relatives rushing out to purchase their own rocks after reading about the product in newspapers and seeing it promoted on such televisions shows as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

The key to the product’s success? The rocks were cute, but it was the packaging that made a splash with consumers. Dahl developed a neat package that featured a cardboard carrying case, complete with air holes, and the rock placed on a bed of excelsior. It also came with a manual on how to care for the rock. It was a short, but gigantic marketing success.

What the Pet Rock fad proved is that a savvy combination of marketing, word-of-mouth, media support and great packaging is all that is necessary to create an air of excitement about a product in the industry. Just as prophetic, however, is that in order for the product to have legs and last for years, it needs to work and provide some type of service to the person buying it. The Pet Rock succeeded on one end and, obviously, failed on the other.

We can learn something from this rock story.