What are the Key Factors Affecting the Purchase of Natural OTC/wellness Products?
Natural OTC/wellness products have seen rapid expansion in terms of sales and prominent retail shelf placement. Natural OTC/wellness products are those that usually are drug-free, may contain natural, plant-, or herb-based ingredients or vitamins and minerals, can be homeopathic, and often make claims of support, prevention, maintenance, and/or treatment of minor conditions. Common examples include probiotics for digestive health, vitamin C supplements for immune support, zinc-based products to help shorten a cold, melatonin for occasional sleeplessness, and other similar products.Continue reading
Clean Hands and Surfaces Help Commercial End Users Maintain Hygienic Facilities
The 2017-2018 cold and flu season has been unusually bad, and consumers and businesses know that clean hands and surfaces are crucial in staying healthy and maintaining hygienic facilities. Consumers understand the important role hand hygiene plays in maintaining good health. Awareness about frequent hand washing as a tool to prevent infection and the spread of disease is widespread. High touch surfaces, such as door handles, hand rails, elevator buttons, and shopping carts, are prime breeding grounds for virus and bacteria, and most facilities use sanitizing wipes to Continue reading
Naturals Move Up from Niche to Mainstream
Moving away from a niche positioning, “clean” and “green” beauty products become mainstream amid lifestyle changes towards wellness and overall health, recording nearly 9% growth in the United States in 2017, more than double the growth of the conventional U.S. cosmetics and toiletries market. With the recent publication of the U.S. volume of our latest report Natural Personal Care Global Series, our experts answer key questions about the market’s developments.Continue reading
Lash Enhancers Take Beauty by Storm
Lash extensions and eyelash enhancers have become the latest trend in beauty in recent years as women opt for an alternative to makeup and move towards effortless beauty. Lash services thrive in 2017, and according to our Kline PRO, the number of professional eyelash services performed are up 14%, as well as up 15% in revenue, through second quarter 2017 versus the same period the prior year, with an average price point of $70.00.
Amazing Lash Studio, a leading lash service franchise located across 28 states with a heavy concentration in Texas, expands quickly in 2017. Since its opening in 2010, the company has expanded to 170 locations in the United States with plans to open more than 130 sites in the near future.Continue reading
Food safety compliance helps drive steady growth of the foodservice cleaning market
Both consumers and foodservice professionals alike share concerns over foodborne illnesses and preventing such outbreaks. The cleanliness of food preparation areas, surfaces, and wares used to prepare and serve food are of utmost importance. In fact, food safety compliance was the single most important issue among over 700 foodservice professional respondents surveyed recently by Kline. Employee training was a close second in terms of importance with other trends, such as minimum wage increases, Internet of Things, green cleaning, labor saving devices, and the impact of social media on their business, such as Yelp, Open Table, and online reviews being of secondary importance.Continue reading
What are the Biggest Trends in Beauty?
The ever-changing world of beauty continues to evolve, and another year of reporting on trends, brands, and products comes into full swing as our analysts delve into the research for the 43rd edition of the Cosmetics & Toiletries USA report, which encompasses five product classes and 18 product categories. While many of the new trends and developments are category-specific, a few stood out during the year that we would like to highlight below.Continue reading
Introducing a brand new tool that provides retail images of OTC categories and brands across multiple channels
Retail aisles and OTC shelves change all the time and vary by category, retail channel, and time of the year. Keeping abreast of what’s happening on shelves is an arduous task, and it’s even harder to track trends over time for OTC sales professionals and brand managers. Therefore, Kline is announcing a powerful new image database to help our clients stay informed of trends in major retailers for their brands and categories. Retail Landscape: OTC Drugs is a fully searchable, filterable image database of actual images taken in stores monthly. Images are uploaded to the database monthly and can be searched by category, brand, company, retail channel, store, location, and date.
“OTC sales professionals may be capturing such information from their individual store visits, but it is often done on an ad hoc basis and not shared across the organization,” says Laura Mahecha, Kline’s Healthcare Industry Manager. “With travel budgets reduced and actual time spent in retail stores limited, it is even harder for sales professionals to make informed decisions.”
This new image database will provide monthly images of category planograms, brand facings and placement, pricing, on-shelf and in-store promotions, signage, and private-label placement and pricing starting in Q1 2018. Both urban and suburban locations will be captured at various geographies in the United States. Images from approximately 100 retail stores will be added to the database each month, and it is accessible without any limits on the number of users, making it a more comprehensive and thorough tool to help inform OTC professionals’ decisions. The categories and retail channels tracked will evolve and change, based on subscriber needs and input, over the course of the year to result in a fully searchable database across all OTC categories and most major retail channels. Quarterly newsletters highlighting trends or changes at retail will also be provided to subscribers. Subscribers also have the option to make custom requests when necessary, for fast-turn around images that capture specific competitive brands, retailers, geographic locations, etc.
For a free demonstration and more information, CONTACT US.
Kline’s New Amalgam Reveals Beauty’s Cyber Month Winners
The results for November—also known as Cyber Month—have just been posted in Amalgam, Kline’s digital tracking service. As it is a big month for online gift purchases, we naturally saw many gift sets moving up the ranks. Here are the top scoring items in the makeup kits category:Continue reading
Driving the Beauty Industry Forward with Data
Last week, the professional beauty industry’s top leaders convened in Scottsdale, AZ, for the 4th annual PBA Executive Summit. This yearly gathering is designed to bring key players to network while learning from a collective of esteemed speakers on how to successfully shape their businesses for tomorrow. Their messages were all clear and consistent with one common theme—Data is King.
Peter Sheahan, founder and Group CEO of Karrikins Group discussed how, in such rapidly changing times, particularly within the beauty industry, can you remain relevant, moving beyond the competition. As technology continues to disrupt and threaten our existing business models, Sheahan drove home the idea that it is crucial to understand our customers and own companies and by using data and insights we can model our business to reflect their changing needs.Continue reading
Salon Survival – Finding the Right Mix
The salon business is tough, which is not news for those in the trenches on a daily basis. According to Kline PRO, the first half of this year saw service transaction counts down 6%, while service revenues declined by just 1%. Hair product sales from salons to consumers fell across all categories. So, what can be done to survive and ideally thrive? Be open to change and leverage the major advantage you have over much of your competition—the stylist.
Competitors, such as the Internet and unauthorized sellers, do not have a trained professional that can personally consult with the client, assess needs, and create an ultimate experience that will fully meet the client’s requirements and expectations. The stylist does need support however. Training on current techniques partnered with information on the latest trends in both services and products will give salons a fighting chance.Continue reading
