Waukesha, Wisconsin – March 10, 2020 – Hamacher Resource Group, Inc.’s (HRG’s) New Item Review team, in its ongoing evaluation of products suitable for the independent pharmacy channel, evaluated 3,045 new health, beauty, and wellness items in 2019. This number is an increase of roughly 17.7% from the 2,587 products reviewed in 2018. The number of items reviewed by the team continues to increase yearly.

Using the company’s proprietary Star Rating System, the team of analysts awarded Stars to 232 of those products they predict to have the highest potential for success in independent pharmacies.

• Beauty products entering the market led with the highest number of new items — which has been true the last five years running — with 1,678 products reviewed, and only 17.2% of the Stars awarded.
• OTC (over the counter) medications had the lowest quantity of new products at 306, they earned 32.8% of the coveted Star Ratings.
• In the Wellness segment there were 1,061 products reviewed and of the 232 HRG Stars awarded, wellness items received 50.0% of awarded Stars.

Within the top five categories in independent pharmacy (Diabetes, Cold & Allergy, Vitamins & Dietary Supplements, Digestive Health, and Pain Relief), 541 new items were reviewed, and from those items, 23.7% received an HRG Star Rating. These products offer great growth opportunities for retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, and should be added to appropriate-sized departments without delay to capture sales and profits as they gain momentum.

Colleen Volheim, category research and analysis manager, said, “In the 100 top-performing new items of 2019, products containing elderberry as an ingredient, as well as pre- and probiotics, are doing really well in sales. We expect this trend to continue in 2020 and beyond.”

Volheim continued, “We’ll be digging into the data further in the next month to find more of those products that are experiencing success and look forward to sharing that list this spring.”  

HRG analysts take a completely objective approach to reviewing new items. Whether a product receives one or more Stars is based on an analysis against five criteria: product innovation, promotional support, category growth, product orientation, and earning potential. For an item to receive at least one HRG Star, the product must be well-rounded and achieve high scores in most of the five areas based on an HRG-exclusive algorithm.