Dive Brief:

• Specialty chain Natural Grocers will launch its first annual “Body Care & Beauty Bonanza” later this month to invite customers to experiment with products that meet its “natural and organic” quality standards, the company announced in a press release on Monday. 
• The "bonanza," which will run from Jan. 29 to Feb. 27, will feature discounts between 15% and 30% off on more than 20 body care brands, a gift basket giveaway for members of the chain’s loyalty program called {N}power, a free sample bag giveaway to 50 shoppers at each store on Feb. 17 and a soap-counting contest to win a $500 Natural Grocers gift card. 
• Natural Grocers will aim to highlight through the month-long bonanza the more than 150 brands that have met the grocer’s “Body Care Standards,” which include a ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), beauty products developed with animal testing and products with artificial colors, talc or petroleum by-products.

Dive Insight:

The skincare industry is in the midst of a popularity boom, with research insights firm Trefis projecting that it will grow in global market value by 30% to $180 billion by 2024.

And more grocers are paying attention to this growing consumer demand, which had historically tended to be served by specialist beauty brands rather than customers’ everyday supermarket. Whole Foods’ health and beauty selections, in particular, have been a source of innovation and investment for the company for years, and in 2015, regional upscale brand Wegmans rolled out its organic skincare private line. 

But with Natural Grocers’ more aggressive promotion of its range of body care and beauty brands and its unequivocal bans on many common ingredients listed on beauty product labels, the grocer is poised to compete more aggressively with dominant players such as Amazon. The beauty bonanza's free samples aim to expose customers to products that they then become attached to, as analysts say that beauty and body care has high repeat purchase rates — once a shopper identifies a product that works for them, they tend to stick with it.

Beauty industry experts say that natural ingredients and “clean beauty” are popular trends in the body care space, which Natural Grocers’ emphasis on its extensive quality control seeks to capitalize on. Its hair care line, for example, excludes any products with parabens or phthalates, and its facial care products are free of artificial fragrances, parabens or mineral oils, which tend to be popular ingredients in drugstore beauty departments. 

Natural Grocers faces more crowded competition now than ever — its stock prices dropped by around 50% from March 2019 to 2020. The expanding presence of traditional grocers into Natural Grocers’ niche, including their development of natural and “organic” private labels, poses a significant threat as the former tend to be cheaper and more convenient to consumers. The {N}power loyalty program, a focal point of the annual bonanza deals, is one way for Natural Grocers to look to hold onto its customers.