How Brands and Retailers Are Expanding In Women’s Health

A perimenopausal woman, a postmenopausal woman, a soon-to-be mom and a preteen can all find full body wellness solutions at Ulta Beauty. Under The Wellness Shop, there’s period care, sexual wellness solutions and hormonal support supplements in one section. It’s a far cry from tampons on aisle 5, multivitamins on aisle 9 and lubricant on aisle 10. It heralds a new approach that an increasing number of brands and retailers are starting to take when it comes to women’s over-the-counter full-body solutions. According to Ulta Beauty’s vice president of wellness Laura Beres, the goal is to address “all ages and stages.”

Over the past few years, women’s wellness has become a super trendy category at retail, with new brands popping up daily. There’s been the tween period care craze, the menopause movement, the seed cycling wave and a deeper focus on fertility. Now, as the category has matured, retailers like Ulta Beauty and brands like O Positiv are broadening their assortment to focus on a woman’s entire lifespan and not just one trending moment, reflecting how consumers today want to shop.

“The consumer likes the idea of shopping in one place, the ease of knowing [it’s all there],” said Rachel Hirsch, founder of Wellness Growth Ventures. 

Experts say the category’s growth has only begun, particularly since women’s spending power across consumer packaged goods is at an all-time high. Nielsen IQ reports that, as of 2024, women account for $31.9 trillion of worldwide spending and are expected to control 75 percent of discretionary spending by 2029.

According to McKinsey, the women’s health market is a $1 trillion opportunity, something retailers are all trying to tap into in a variety of ways. “Retailers are definitely eyes wide open to the women’s health conversation. They are thinking about what their assortments look like,” said Stripes Beauty’s global brand president Cara Kamenev. “Women’s health has a space in stores now. In the very beginning, a few retailers struggled to figure it out, and may have shuttered it. That’s no longer the case. Everyone is making a space, and they’re just trying to figure out how to do it, not if they do it.” 

That being said, retailers are in experimentation mode. For Ulta Beauty, the category has proven successful via The Wellness Shop, leading to its expansion from 4-to-8 feet of dedicated shelf space to 30-to-45 feet in a third of its doors. Meanwhile, Credo Beauty, which exited supplements several years ago, is reentering the category with a female-focused lens and also recently added Naomi Watts’ menopause solutions brand Stripes to its assortment.

“We’re still trying to assess where our customer is going. What is she comfortable buying from a beauty retailer versus something else?” said Credo Beauty’s vice president of brands Jessica Trieber. 

Whether it be a beauty retailer or a big-box store, each retailer is approaching the category differently. Is a dedicated women’s health aisle, like Ulta Beauty’s, on the way or will products stay sequestered into different sections of period care, supplements, family planning, etc.? Even experts aren’t sure yet.

“There’s a lot of thinking going on in this space,” said WSL Strategic Retail founder Wendy Liebmann. “There are retailers who are still saying, ‘We think it’s easier for women to find what they want in the appropriate sections, rather than bring it all together [into one area].’”

Some experts say that Target, particularly following the end of its partnership with Ulta Beauty, could be best primed to merchandise the women’s wellness category, given its expansive assortment including Lemme, Love Wellness, The Honey Pot and O Positiv, in a new and innovative way. However, sources say it’s still early days. Although retailers are in experimentation mode when it comes to how and what to merchandise, it’s clear that women’s wellness will continue to grow.

While retailers are experimenting with how to merchandise, brands are expanding their assortment and ultimately showcasing what consumers are actually purchasing. According to Kamenev, retailers are increasingly asking what is performing well to help inform their own women’s wellness assortments. 

Women’s wellness brand O Positiv, which is available at Target, Walmart and CVS, has been expanding its lineup since its early days, first launching with Flo, $32, a gummy vitamin infused with dong quai, lemon balm, chasteberry and vitamin B6 to treat symptoms of PMS. It was a quick hit that led the team to adjust their strategy accordingly. 

“We realized that we needed to approach every other aspect of women’s health in this same way, by giving women the tools to approach the issues that we deal with naturally and proactively, instead of reactively,” said O Positiv cofounder Brianna Bitton. “We were like, ‘Nobody’s talking about UTIs. Nobody’s talking about the troubles of conceiving. Nobody’s talking about menopause.’ We wanted to approach all of those aspects, the lifespan of the woman in the same way.” 

O Positiv now breaks its products down into four key categories: Uro for vaginal and gut health; Flo for period and hormones; Meno for health aging, and Preggo for nutrition and support. Each category includes a variety of products, such as its latest launch Uro Vaginal Moisture & Mood Capsules, $32, a libido and sexual function-enhancing supplement. 

Other brands are following suit, expanding their assortment to meet a wider range of needs. For example, plant-based supplement company Apothékary, projected to hit $30 million in sales this year, launched hormone-balancing tincture Every Phase, $39, while Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s Lemme launched a libido-enhancing gummy, Lemme Play, $30. Brands like Bird & Be are tapping into novel products, like fertility-supporting lubricants.

Meanwhile, Perelel, which entered the market with a focus on fertility, has expanded well beyond that recently with its Perimenopause Support Pack, $59, and Conception Support Pack, $59.

“We ultimately want to continue to age with her,” said Perelel cofounder Tori Gioia. “For the future of the brand, we see ourselves having products for each stage of womanhood.”

Similarly, a crop of new women’s health brands have recently entered the market, including Body of Work, a GenZ-centric multivitamin, and Iris Nutrition, a hormone support drink supplement already thinking about expansion. While both currently focus on one area of a woman’s lifespan, the founders are committed to growing with the consumer and expanding as she ages.

This expansion, with brands and retailers, is happening for a variety of reasons, experts say. 

“One of the pieces is that wallet share. They want to win more. The second piece is funding for early stage was at an all-time high for this category,” said Hirsch, noting that this led to further investment in product development.

Hirsch equated this expansion of women’s health to supplement brand Olly’s recent entry into body care. After establishing themselves in one category, women’s health brands have the runway to enter into new areas. Bitton seconded this, adding that with the success of each launch, O Positiv has been able to dive deeper into more novel areas.

“Talking about some topics has allowed us to dig deeper and talk about even more topics that are taboo. Talking about PMS and the process of conceiving, we’ve now been able to go a little deeper and talk about our libidos and our sexual function and menopause,” she said. “Every time we peel back a layer, we get a little deeper.” 

Bitton and Hirsch said areas of focus going forward include hormone health, menopause solutions and perinatal and pregnancy support. However, all of this expansion doesn’t come without its challenges. “We’re seeing this explosion, and the challenge is how do you address the needs women have without making it so complicated,” said Liebmann. 

In particular, brands should avoid expanding too rapidly without building out their customer base and ensuring product efficacy, experts say.

“If you have highly efficacious products in silo one that is going to give the consumer credence to some degree, that you will have similar efficacy in said new category, [but] if there’s a lack of efficacy [in the new products], that will turn them off of not just the new side but the old side,” Hirsch said. 

Furthermore, brands should avoid expanding too quickly if they haven’t built out their core market first. 

“They’re increasing their risk profile because if they weren’t able to win in a more niche category, expanding may may just create more opportunity for them to fail,” she said.

While the category is constantly evolving in terms of what products consumers are resonating with and how and where they want to shop, experts agree women’s wellness isn’t slowing down. “It’s not a moment,” said Kamenev. “This is a movement.”