The global health and wellness market continues to climb. In 2023 the market size reached $5.5 trillion and is projected to rise to almost $14 trillion by 2032.
Both DTC and service-based businesses have experienced supercharged growth in the past few years. Both newer brands and fan favorites have been able to take advantage of soaring interest in virtual and physical classes, personalized wellness experiences, and smart fitness equipment.
But increasing interest means greater competition. Wellness services and products are everywhere. How can your DTC ecommerce brand stand out from the noise?
Here we’ll share global wellness trends, insights, and stats on what 2024 will likely bring to the industry. First, we’ll review the state of the industry and what’s been shaking it up in 2023.
The health and wellness market: key trends and stats
In a McKinsey study of roughly 5,000 consumers, 82% of US consumer now consider wellness a top or important priority. In the UK and China consumers report 73% and 87% share this sentiment. In fact, consumers in every market reported a substantial increase in the prioritization of wellness.
That prioritization of health has supercharged growth in the industry––growth that looks set to continue in the future. In 2023, the world wellness market hit $93 billion by 2028.
Furthermore, younger generations, like millennials and Gen Z, are spending more on health and wellness than older generations. McKinsey & Company report millennials and Gen Z consistently spent more in every category: appearance, health, fitness, nutrition, sleep, and mindfulness in 2023.
Products and services that promote healthy aging are also very popular for this demographic. 70% of UK and US consumers and 85% of Chinese consumers report investing in products and services that promote healthy aging and living longer.
But as wellness popularity increases, the landscape is becoming increasingly crowded. Brands need to be strategic about how and what they create. Health and wellness activities are no longer limited to physical experiences. To stand out, brands must build online and omnichannel experiences.
To future-proof your business, tap into the health and wellness trends that make sense for your brand and its target audience.
In the direct-to-consumer (DTC) health and wellness world, some trends to watch for the year ahead include:
- Men’s personal care products growing in popularity
- Focus on mental health
- Personalized wellness experiences with AI
- Gut health and probiotics
11 health and wellness trends to follow in 2024
- Wellness experiences get personalized
- Brands will partner with authentic influencers
- DTC brands offer services
- People own more smart exercise equipment
- Consumers download apps to help them build solid health and wellness routines
- The rise of the “wellness metaverse
- Younger generations look to AR to take fitness classes
- Men’s personal care brands continue to grow in popularity
- Sleep is a top priority for more people
- Focus on overall health, not weight loss
- Prioritizing mental health
1. Wellness experiences get personalized
People expect personalized health and wellness. But consumers are increasingly privacy-conscious––they’re wary of who they share their personal data with. Only 15% of consumers say they’re willing to share health data, including medication history, health records, lab results, and physical activity data with health technology companies.
To build consumer trust, health, and wellness, brands must provide value to consumers who are comfortable exchanging privacy for personalization. In practice, this looks like wellness brands going beyond building personalized marketing campaigns and building tailor-made product offerings unique to the consumer.
According to Vesta, 58% of consumers are “very interested” in personalized supplements made just for them, with younger generations like Gen Z and millennials being most interested (71%).
Supplement brand HUM Nutrition personalizes its offering to each individual consumer. Customers complete a quick 13-question quiz about their daily lifestyle, food, and exercise habits.
HUM supplements make it easy for visitors to get a 30% discount––all they need to do is share their email address.
HUM Nutrition shares personalized supplement recommendations based on the consumer’s unique response. The aim is to share supplements with real health benefits to boost the consumer’s immune system, mental wellness, immune health, and broader well-being.
Then, in exchange for the customer’s personal data, including their email address, HUM provides a 50% discount on their first order. Customers can also get 30% off by signing up for the brand’s newsletter.
Susan Frech, CEO of Vesta, explains that personalized health and wellness offerings are often the key to standing out from competitors and building consumer health routines that last beyond the new-year excitement.
“Whether you’re a legacy or challenger brand, now is the time to offer personalized products and experiences that secure strong relationships and create a pipeline of advocacy that lasts beyond the ‘New Year, New You’ season,” Susan says.
2. Brands will partner with authentic influencers
Influencers are a central part of the health and wellness industry. Over the past two years, the share of consumers who said influencers or celebrities were important to brand discovery rose by nearly 20% to around 60%.
But it’s no longer about collaborating with the influencer or celebrity that has the highest follower count. Instead, people want to see authentic content from relatable influencers. For wellness brands, this may mean partnering with micro-influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers) or even nano-influencers (less than 10,000 followers).
Brands often see influencers with fewer followers create more authentic content when compared to overly polished celebrity endorsements. An important part of any influencer marketing strategy is building trust with its audience––people are much more likely to trust accounts they can more easily relate to.
In fact, nano-influencers have an average engagement rate of 3.69%––over twice the engagement that macro-influencers have.
For instance, supplement brand Total Life Changes shares authentic posts created by micro- and nano-influencers with their audience.
HiSmile is another example of a wellness brand that used an influencer-led marketing strategy to get its products in front of a broad global target audience on Instagram. Social selling and influencer marketing drove HiSmile from a kitchen table idea to a global force.
For instance, their Instagram campaign with Conor McGregor alone scored a five times return on ad spend, with the popular Irish fighter helping HiSmile reach a whopping 14 million 18- to 24-year-olds in their campaign—plus an additional 90% increase in total male customers captured.
3. DTC brands offer services
Services and apps are a growing segment of the wellness market––they represent around 30% of total health and wellness spend. This will likely increase too––around 45% of consumers intend to spend more on services or app-based services in the next year.
To tap into this trend, DTC brands are increasingly offering experiences.
For instance, Peloton expanded their service offering to provide subscriptions for its fitness app, live virtual workout classes, and in-person sessions, helping them reach customers who may not have Peloton workout equipment.
Wellness brands can tap into their strong brand power and loyal customer bases to create virtual wellness services.
4. People own more smart exercise equipment
In 2022, 42.6 million US adults used a connected fitness platform such as Peloton at least once a month. This figure ballooned from 24 million in 2019.
As people continue to work from home in 2023 and beyond, the trend for at-home connected fitness has continued and looks set to grow. Sixty percent of US consumers continued to work out at home the majority of the time as of 2022.
Plus, just 7% of US consumers who exercise expect to work out entirely at a gym or studio for the next year. By comparison, 42% plan to exercise only at home, while the rest anticipate using some combination of the two.
DTC brands are tapping into consumer preferences for at-home workouts and bridging the gap between gym and at-home workouts with smart exercise equipment.
Currently, Peloton has the lionshare of smart fitness equipment––32% of US adults who have home fitness equipment own their products. Despite that dominance, the company is behind Nike and Lululemon Athletica in US direct-to-consumer ecommerce sales.
Lululemon’s purchase of Mirror––now known as Lululemon Studio––provided them with a digital offering to support its main fitness apparel business. Users can stream over 10,000 classes from fitness studios, including pilates and HIIT, through the device, in their home gym. Instead of having to go to their nearest studio, they can get a top-tier training experience in their own homes.
Lululemon has also launched in-store fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness offerings to bridge the gap between remote and in-person workouts.
Some brands provide the option to work out via a mobile app alongside a trainer on the go or at home. Smart fitness brands also provide people with a community element to their workouts—something empowering and energizing.
Smart fitness users can work out and engage with each other in multiple ways, depending on the exercise equipment. Peloton, for example, promotes their Leaderboard, Video Chat, and Here Now features. Lululemon’s Studio encourages user engagement by using community cameras.
Smart fitness equipment has developed into a shared community experience where consumers can choose when and how they work out while engaging with other like-minded people.
5. Consumers download apps to help them build solid health and wellness routines
As people continue to exercise from home and adopt remote-friendly workouts that don’t require a physical gym space, consumers are increasingly turning to workout apps.
According to Statista, in 2023, the most common fitness and health online services consumers in the United States spent money on were fitness, yoga, training, and health tracking apps. Plus, some of the leading health and fitness apps downloaded globally in the Google Play Store included weight loss apps and home workout apps.
Currently, the top US mobile health and fitness apps include Planet Fitness and Sweatcoin. The rest of the top 10 list shows a spread between meditation, health tracking, and workout apps.
To tap into this wellness trend, brands can evaluate how their offering could be packaged into a health-oriented community-based app. For instance, the Nike Training Club app aims to help users’ stick with their fitness habits. There’s free guidance from trainers, athletes, and nutritionists. Users can also participate in a catalog of free workouts including restorative yoga, HIIT, and bodyweight burn.
6. The rise of the “wellness metaverse”
While the metaverse is still a novel concept, consumers are already looking for ways to improve their daily routines and experiences. Sixty percent of US teens and adults believe virtual environments will make finding a fitness or exercise routine significantly easier.
The growing wellness metaverse will create new opportunities for each segment of the surging global wellness market. Health and wellness brands may choose to use the metaverse in the following immersive ways:
- Immersive mindfulness sessions
- Interactive cookery classes
- Virtual workouts
- Gamified exercise
For instance, VR fitness apps in the metaverse, like Supernatural and Beat Saber, combine upbeat music, high-intensity workouts, and virtual coaching to create an engaging and fun exercise experience.
As these metaverse experiences are in their infancy, there’s room for improvement when it comes to user experience. In the past year, some users have complained that the fitness data in these apps is hard to export into fitness tracking apps or wearables.
In a blog post, Meta said that all users’ fitness data will be syncable to the Apple Health App and the Oculus Mobile app on iOS.
“This means all your exercise stats, including your activities both in and out of VR, can be tracked and available in one place,” Meta said.
These new integrations should help retain users, especially consumers who already rely on Apple devices for fitness-related activities.
Meta’s developing tech will also encourage iOS and Apple Watch users to try out VR fitness apps and close their activity rings. As Apple continues to develop its wearables lines, including future goggles, metaverse-based wellness activities will continue to grow in variety and popularity in 2023 and beyond.
7. Younger generations look to AR to take fitness classes
AR and VR are becoming increasingly popular. Once a dystopian-sounding concept, used only by young gamers, it’s now helping people access more exercise classes from home.
People can use the tech to participate in augmented reality fitness classes or share their fitness progress with social media followers.
Thanks to its ease of use, augmented reality looks set to grow in popularity––according to eMarketer, in 2024, around 104.3 million people in the US are expected to use AR at least once a month.
AR is particularly effective for engaging with younger fitness enthusiasts like millennials and Generation Z. Forty-eight percent of Gen Z adults exercise several times a week, and 24% do it several times a month. This strong interest in exercise, combined with their use of social media, makes them likely to be interested in augmented reality fitness.
For instance, Snap partnered with fitness app and tracker Strava to create a new AR lens that lets users share interactive visual updates of their fitness activities. The Strava Activity Lens provides AR overlay options on Snapchat’s camera display, using data from Strava so users share their recent workouts on the Snap Map.
Snap users tap Strava’s lens to take a Snap or post a story using AR overlays to show an exercise route, pace, distance, or other fitness-related data.
Other brands use AR to help users make the most of their workouts. Some tools are smartphone compatible, while others use smart glasses that work with apps like Solo Wearables or an AR-enabled wearable device.
The AR wearables market is growing––it was valued at $40.12 billion and is expected to be worth $218.41 billion in 2027. This could be a big upshot for the AR fitness industry, due to the inconvenience of holding smartphones while exercising. Using hands-free AR, people can experience safer and more effective workouts.
One of the pioneering examples of an AR gamified app created to encourage exercise is Zombies, Run. To motivate runners, the app plays commentary from helicopter pilots who guide users on how to outrun the zombie apocalypse.
Other examples of AR apps include mindfulness exercise apps that create visualizations based on the users’ breathing.
8. Men’s personal care brands continue to grow in popularity
While wellness and personal care traditionally have been targeted at women, there’s increasing demand for men’s personal care products.
The global men’s personal care market size was valued at $79.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach 115.3 billion by 2028. There’s clearly plenty of room for opportunity.
There’s increasing demand for gender-specific products like shampoo, soap, face masks, and peels. Plus, growing numbers of men are purchasing their own personal care products instead of having a partner or family member do it for them.
Dr. Squatch is one example of a men’s care brand tapping into this increased demand. Founded in 2013, the DTC brand began with an online shop that sold natural soap bars. In June 2023, Dr. Squatch launched a new line of natural deodorant and hair care products, adding face wash to its product line.
To connect with their target audience, the brand focuses on using humor to educate men about the benefits of using natural personal care products.
“Guys don’t necessarily talk about personal care in a way, generally speaking … that women do and, so there’s an element of having to really find ways of connecting with them that are unique,” Josh Friedman, chief marketing officer at personal care brand Dr. Squatch, told Retail Brew.
Manscaped is another men’s personal care brand that has seen popularity for its offering soar. In late 2022, the business announced it successfully finished an undisclosed Series B funding round that will be used to boot product expansion in 2023.
“By listening to our customers and focusing on innovation, we continue to expand our offerings to include products that men want and need to elevate their self-care routines. We’re looking forward to a robust product roadmap in 2023 and beyond,” Manscaped founder and CEO Paul Train told Retail Brew.
9. Sleep is a top priority for more people
Sleeping well is the next highest priority for consumers following better health––45% of consumers say sleep is very important to them.
As people begin to prioritize high-quality sleep, the range and innovation of products also increase. Apps like SleepTown and Sleep Cycle help people track and improve their sleeping habits.
To incentivize people to stay off their phones and prioritize sleep, SleepTown gamifies the process. The app locks the phone screen with a slow animation of buildings being constructed. The buildings or town gets destroyed if you don’t meet your set goal. Sleep wearables like Oura Ring and WHOOP also help people measure and improve their sleep.
DTC health and wellness brands that want to make the most of this trend should look for innovative apps or wearables to add to their lineup. Partnering with other brands in the sleep industry can help you get in front of the right target audience. For example, a mattress brand partnering with an app developer or smart fitness equipment.
10. Focus on overall health, not weight loss
There’s been a decline in aesthetic-based diets, and a growing interest in healthful foods made with natural ingredients. In a study performed by GWI, there was an 18% increase in consumers buying products with probiotics at the end of 2023. While low-fat products, low-calorie products, and even fat-free products all saw a decline.
The wellness consumer of today is focusing on long-term health outcomes like gut health rather than fad diets. SPINS reports that from April 2022 to April 2023 there was a 210% increase in sales of soft drinks that contained prebiotics and probiotics. Prebiotic and probiotic water had an 18% sales increase and probiotic yogurt increased 10%.
Brands that understand the push for healthfulness over weight loss are not only seeing skyrocketing sales but also gaining powerful partners, like Olipop, a prebiotic soda company.
In 2018, Olipop started off with only $850K in revenue. Then as public interest in gut health increased, Olipop hit $100 million in revenue in the first six months of 2023. And even got investors like Gwyneth Paltrow, Mindy Kaling, and the Jonas Brothers on its roster.
11. Prioritizing mental health
A major wellness trend that has continued to grow is taking care of your mental health. From February 2022 to February 2023 there was an increase of 2% in adults reporting mental health issues. That data is a result of more people seeking mental health help. In fact, a survey conducted by growtherapy found that 83% of therapists saw an increase in patients in 2023.
In fact, mental health is something that all brands are concerned about—not just wellness brands. Fashion brands like Kenneth Cole created their own alliance, The Mental Health Coalition to provide resources and advocate for mental health.
Furthermore, mental health has even been pushed beyond the couch. The online therapy service Betterhelp saw a 15% increase in revenue (over $850 million) in the first nine months of 2023.
Tap into these health and wellness trends in 2024
The health and wellness market is growing and shows no signs of slowing down. Consumers are set to continue prioritizing good health and their well being next year, meaning they’ll likely spend more too.
But the wellness segment is also becoming more competitive, so brands must consider how to best engage with target consumers.
Focus on tapping into a few core trends, including:
- Creating personalized wellness experiences
- Building authentic influencer campaigns
- Creating virtual fitness sessions
Depending on your brand and audience, see what resonates with customers best and how you can meet their needs. Then, convince them to become repeat customers with recurring subscriptions and fresh experiences.
Health and wellness trends FAQ
What are the health and wellness trends for 2024?
- Personalized nutrition and supplements: Say goodbye to one-size-fits-all diets. Using advanced technology like DNA testing, apps can now suggest the perfect diet based on your unique body.
- People own more smart exercise equipment: People can use the equipment to exercise at home and connect with other members of the fitness community.
- Virtual reality workouts: Virtual reality brings the gym to you. People just strap on a headset and exercise in virtual worlds.
- Men’s personal care becomes mainstream: Men are increasingly interested in gender-specific grooming products and look for natural ingredients.
- Sleep optimization: Gadgets and apps are here to help people sleep better, understand their sleep patterns, and offer tips for a restful night.
What is a current wellness trend?
Is the health and wellness industry growing?
What are the four areas of health and wellness?
- Mental wellbeing
- Physical fitness
- Sleep
- Nutrition
