The Most Overlooked Market In Retailing And Branding Today

Forbes Business Retail The Most Overlooked Market In Retailing And Branding Today Richard Kestenbaum Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Following Click to save this article. You’ll be asked to sign into your Forbes account.

Nov 16, 2023, 11:30am EST Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin These women are experiencing something that almost no brand or retailer is addressing. getty If you discovered that every day, 6,000 women in America aged into your product or service and that no one else was offering it, would you be excited about your business? That’s the opportunity with menopause. Every day, 6,000 U.

S. women turn 51, the center of the curve for women in their menopause journey. The Mayo Clinic estimates that almost 1 billion women have reached menopause worldwide.

In 1923, life expectancy for women in the U. S. was 58.

But in 2023, women in the U. S. who reach 51 can expect to to live to be 82 years old and spend nearly 40% of their lives being post-menopausal.

Almost every consumer-related business refers to its customers by their stage of life with terms like Boomers, Millennials, Gen X or Gen Z. But menopausal and post-menopausal women have no such reference or cute name. Almost no one is focused on this group of women and yet they have needs that can be huge commercial opportunities.

Where The Opportunities Are Opportunities are problems that creative entrepreneurs can find solutions for. Here are some of them: According to a study by Carrot Fertility , a majority of menopausal women lost work hours or took time off or days off from work because of menopause symptoms. A majority of those “concealed the real reason” for their time off.

MORE FOR YOU Walmart Stock Tanks 7% As Retailer Warns Consumers Still Tightening Their Belts Singapore s OCBC Acquires Commonwealth Bank Of Australia s Indonesian Unit For 142 Million Dyson Airwrap Black Friday: You Can Save $120 On The Tool Right Now Almost half of all women say they were not prepared or completely unprepared for menopause. They get their information about menopause from their doctor, internet searches, friends and relatives, in that order. For every OB-GYN trained in menopause treatment, there are 33,000 women.

Those numbers tell us that guidance and information is not available to most women. The symptoms menopausal women find most troubling are hot flashes, trouble sleeping, fatigue, night sweats and weight gain. Each of those are experienced by more than 70% of menopausal women.

There are not just problems to be solved, there is also the possibility of increasing lifespan. Alicia Jackson, CEO and Founder of Evernow which provides personalized care and treatments for menopause, “there’s a convincing argument that says menopause leads to an increase in certain diseases that shorten women’s lives. ” Jackson explains that the later women experience menopause, the longer their lifespan.

She suggests that if it were possible to delay menopause, it could be a life-extending treatment. Daisy Robinton is CEO and Founder of Oviva Therapeutics, a biomedical research company focused on extending female healthspan. She explains that menopause accelerates aging in a woman’s entire body and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, sleep disruption, sexual dysfunction, osteoporosis and changes to skin and hair.

Oviva is focused on controlling the loss rate of ovarian reserves to delay the start of menopause. If Oviva is successful, menopause symptoms will start later, aging will be postponed and women will live longer. Jackson of Evernow says menopause treatments and care is “underinvested in research and training.

” She says that OB-GYNs “tell me they got six hours of training on menopause in four years of medical school. ” Jackson says things are going to change because menopause “is an entire category of health care. ” It’s also an opportunity for employers.

According to the Carrot Fertility study, 8% of respondents say they receive significant support from their employer and 59% say they receive no support at all. Menopause mentoring, emotional support or therapy, medical care and time off were available to no more than 7. 6% of respondents.

82% of respondents said menopause benefits are valuable and 92% said they would improve job satisfaction. Who Will Make Money From This Yanghee Paik, CEO and Co-founder of feminine products company Rael, says discussion of menopause is taboo but women who are “more interested in understanding more about their own body and health” is trending and that is going to bring menopause into the open. Ali Kole runs the multi-billion dollar premium beauty business for Amazon.

She says that just as clean beauty used to be its own section in a beauty store and now it’s integrated into everyday products and has basic for the industry, that will happen to menopause products as the discussion of the subject becomes more open. But the conversation is only now developing. Rochelle Weitzner, who founded skincare brand Pause which focuses on menopausal and post-menopausal women, says she “underestimated how much time it would take to create a new category and break through barriers” and the related cost and capital requirements.

When the brand was launched in 2019, Nordstrom put it in all stores immediately. But Facebook and Google GOOG would not allow advertising of menopause-related products, QVC QVCA would not carry them in the U. S.

and many publications wouldn’t cover the subject. This wristband from Embr will help a menopausal woman be more comfortable as her body changes. Embr Labs Sam Shames, COO and Co-Founder of Embr, says there are many products that are especially needed by menopausal women and some of them are already on the market for other uses, including moisture-wicking clothing, cooling mattresses and skincare to treat lines.

His company makes a device that users wear like a wristwatch (photo above), but it doesn’t tell time, it helps your body stay cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s cold. Embr wasn’t founded to focus on menopausal women but it found them ideally suited to their wristband product so it turned its marketing to concentrate on menopausal women. A lot has changed in a short time.

The MeToo movement has adjusted the way people think about the rights of women to have their needs met. That has happily spilled over to make many more previously undiscussed subjects, including menopause, now more available in public. The Carrot study says that 8% of women thought they were very informed and prepared for menopause.

For the other 92%, the changes in attitude about the rights of women will have a profound effect on the products they find to help them deal with menopause and the information available to them both before it arrives and after. We are only at the beginning of awareness of the opportunity. The products, devices, services and information are only now being imagined and it’s impossible to describe the range of what will be created.

Some things are known: This is a huge market and a huge opportunity. It’s not going away; in fact, it’s growing. More women are going to feel more comfortable spending meaningful amounts of money to deal with menopause.

More employers are going to offer support in many forms to help them. More professionals are going to be trained to bring more knowledge to women experiencing menopause. More companies are going to be created to make the experience better and easier.

And all of that is a huge opportunity for legacy companies selling adjacent products and services. But the history of the last 20 years says that innovation will more likely come from startups. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Menopausal women were always in the market. They were always buying products and services from legacy brands. They just want to see those companies offering products that openly address their issues and serve them.

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