How an Australian supplements company caught the attention of a major US retailer, during a global pandemic
- Written by Izhar Basha, Founder EHPlabs
Business is tough. Business in 2020 has been, for many, debilitating. COVID has seen stores shuttered, businesses collapse overnight, and once robust companies and brands fighting to keep the doors open and the lights on. Life for many business owners in 2020 has changed beyond recognition, and many of us have had to reassess our customer base, their behaviour, and the way we do business, in order to survive – and just possibly, thrive.
Starting as one small supplements store in the Sydney suburb of Randwick 8 years ago, EHPlabs is not unfamiliar with needing to adapt to grow - but one thing that has always been key to the business, and its ability to do that, is a focus on our community. At the heart of everything we do, our customers have always been key, and supporting them on their health and wellness journeys has formed the basis of our business plans from day one, and the reason we have grown into an international company. But as a B2B business, our customers include the very important retail sector as well as our end consumers.
With the immediate and completely unprecedented impact of COVID-19, many of our retailers around the world were forced to close their doors with no warning. This is why it was so important for us to look for the right private label supplement manufacturers, that would work with us even in the toughest of times. Our end consumers were left unable to purchase products, and our B2B customers were left with real question marks over the viability of their businesses. The EHPlabs ethos of always putting our community first remained, and we worked with retailers to support them through down periods and adapted our own sales channels to sell directly to consumers for the first time. It was paramount that we adapted quickly to ensure our community wasn’t left without support, and in a win-win situation, our brand and business continued to grow despite all of the challenges we were facing along with the rest of the world.
The strength of our global community and our unwavering commitment to them, has allowed EHPlabs to continue to not only trade through the worldwide pandemic, but to also secure new business opportunities. Our ability to adapt and the prominence of our global community and its passion for our products caught attention of American retailer, The Vitamin Shoppe, whose customers were demanding our products – even during the pandemic.
In what was an unexpected, but very welcome approach, one of the USA’s biggest supplements retailers started a conversation about stocking EHPlabs products in 800 of its stores. The partnership will be finalised in November this year, and is a positive step towards ongoing growth in what continues to be a challenging year of business for many of us around the globe.
