The Vitamin Shoppe®, a subsidiary of Franchise Group Inc. (NASDAQ: FRG), is a global, omnichannel specialty retailer and wellness lifestyle company with the mission of providing customers with the most trusted products, guidance, and services to support them on their journeys of lifelong wellness.
Story Behind the Brand
11
%
increase in add-to-cart rate on category pages
5.69
%
increase in search revenue per visitor (RPV)
2
%
increase in RPV for shoppers who started on category pages
Challenge
The Vitamin Shoppe saw its best revenue data in direct search performance. Customers who knew exactly what they needed (such as a specific brand of protein powder) would search for the product directly on The Vitamin Shoppe’s website, quickly find it, and complete their purchase.
However, category browsing presented challenges for the brand. Shoppers who weren’t sure exactly what they needed — for instance, someone exploring “protein for muscle gain” options — often landed on search results pages or even category pages, where they required more assistance. Instead of searching for “gold standard whey protein” by name, they browsed these broader categories in the hopes of finding products that fit their specific goals.
In a brick-and-mortar store, a Health Enthusiast (The Vitamin Shoppe’s in-store associate) would step in to guide these customers, asking questions, understanding their needs, and recommending the right product. Prior to implementing Bloomreach, The Vitamin Shoppe did not have an intuitive search and merchandising solution that could confidently fill in for the Health Enthusiast.
“What the team and I were really looking for with Bloomreach was an improvement with our category pages,” explained Tamara Pircz, the Vice President, Digital Commerce at The Vitamin Shoppe. “Our search customers tend to have a strong intent. They know what they want because they have either made their purchase before or done their research. The customer who was learning and browsing — that was the biggest opportunity for us.”
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Solution
After achieving transformative results with Bloomreach’s SEO capabilities in 2018, The Vitamin Shoppe expanded its use of our comprehensive solution.
Bloomreach helped The Vitamin Shoppe move beyond traditional site search by filling content gaps, improving search and category page quality, and driving incremental organic search traffic. The new tool laid the foundation for a more streamlined product discovery experience that led to an improvement in the quality and quantity of website traffic.
Encouraged by these results, The Vitamin Shoppe adopted Bloomreach’s autonomous search feature, as well as its merchandising suite. This empowered the brand to shift from manual fixes to a self-driving revenue engine that could intelligently assist customers throughout their discovery journey and convert more site visitors who were learning about and browsing for products. Overall, the vitamin and supplements brand wanted to match its personalized in-store shopping experience.
With Bloomreach, The Vitamin Shoppe transformed its search and category pages into an experience that understands shopper intent, personalizes results in real time, and mirrors the supportive, educational approach of its Health Enthusiasts. Powered by Bloomreach’s GenAI core, The Vitamin Shoppe created a winning search experience using Bloomreach-built algorithms trained on over a decade of commerce data, which allowed it to optimize search for people’s diverse wellness goals and get smarter with every interaction.
The technical integration with Bloomreach was easy and seamless. Bloomreach offers enough tools and services to be that one consistent ‘brain’ behind the website operation. Bloomreach can help the customer journey be flawless across the entire web experience.
Tamara Pircz
Vice President, Digital Commerce, The Vitamin Shoppe
Results
The Vitamin Shoppe set out to improve key metrics related to its category performance — and exceeded expectations. For implementation, the brand saw an 11% increase in add-to-cart rate on category pages and a 2% increase in revenue per visitor (RPV) for users who started their journey on category pages. Search performance also strengthened, with a 7.73% increase in search add-to-cart rate, a 6.51% lift in search average order value (AOV), and a 5.69% boost in RPV. These results were measured across two-week periods before and after launching Bloomreach.
Beyond those numbers, The Vitamin Shoppe succeeded in bridging the gap between its online and in-store experiences. With a more personalized discovery journey, customers who once relied solely on Health Enthusiasts for product recommendations could now received similar guidance online.
Pircz summed it up best: “The implementation gave us results even better than I anticipated. It went exactly the way that we were hoping, and we saw improvements in all of the areas that made a difference to us. Shoppers could discover products more easily, better understand their options, and feel more confident making a purchase.”
Thanks to Bloomreach, The Vitamin Shoppe now delivers personalized product discovery experiences at scale, helping customers — even those still exploring the best health options for their goals — find exactly what they need.
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