The H&BA conference highlighted how quickly the health and beauty market is evolving, shaped by changing consumer needs, new discovery channels and shifting category priorities. This article brings together the key themes from the event, focusing on what they mean for retailers, brands and operators looking to identify growth opportunities and stay relevant in an increasingly competitive market.

Menopause is one of the most underserved and therefore biggest growth opportunities in health and beauty

The conference kicked off with a strong display of a severely underdeveloped category of health and beauty retail, the menopause. The talk began around the idea that the menopause has been fairly invisible, particularly in retail, until the past few years. This notion means the main goal of GenM, the creators of the Mtick, was to make the menopause more visible. Throughout the presentation, it became incredibly clear that the scale of menopause across the UK and around the world was monumental, and makes it seem almost ridiculous that suppliers and retailers only recently began paying attention to the topic. Statistics shared included that 15.5m women in the UK are going through the menopause, with 1+billion worldwide, making it the No.1 health concern for women in mid-life. Since suppliers and retailers have been putting a focus on the menopause in the past few years, growth has been exponential. In 2025, there was a 16% growth in the menopause market, with 565k new shoppers.

We then saw the responses from women regarding menopause related products, 87% of menopausal women said they feel underserved by brands they’ve shopper with for life, 82% of women would like a dedicated menopause category. This echoed the key words identified by menopausal consumers; overlooked, invisible, isolated, underserved, lacking confidence, and lacking trust. 94% of menopausal consumers believe trust matters in purchasing.

There are two main issues found with menopause products in the market, the first is price. The current average price of a menopause product is £4.54, £1.69 more than the average health & beauty product. As well as this almost 1/3 of all menopause product spend comes from AB1 households. This shows a distinct gap in accessibility for the average consumer looking for menopause products, as those on lower incomes will find it to be a barrier to entry.

The second issue that came to mind regarding the menopause category were the products and SKUs found within the category. The problem of segmentation of menopause products comes from placing Mtick products all in a specific menopause bay in store, while most of the products could be marketed towards a much wider audience. Products were not being found elsewhere on shelves, narrowing the likelihood of a shopper finding what they are looking for.

Discovery is changing faster than demand

If menopause highlighted the scale of unmet need, the Amazon and TikTok shop sessions denoted that discovery is becoming more fragmented, personalised, algorithmic, and much more dependent on visibility.

Amazon remains a major engine of growth, holding firm as the largest online health and beauty retailer. The conference underlined that performance on Amazon is linked to a variety of metrics such as page views, ad clicks, reviews, ratings, rather than just on ad spend as a whole. This suggests success on the platform depends less on efficiency of media and marketing but rather the overall strength of the brand’s digital shelf. Product pages, content quality, reviews, FAQs and overall discoverability all play a role in determining the performance of a brand/product.

TikTok Shop (TTS), meanwhile, reflects a different shift. Instead of just capturing existing demand, the session identified that platforms can now create demand through content and interest. In health and beauty, this is specifically powerful because products are often suited to be demonstrated in video format, products are also discovered through recommendation, and visual storytelling. Creator content, short-form video, and livestreaming all reduce the distance between discovery and conversion, while also improving the credibility and relevance of products. The broader message of the talk is that discovery is no longer linear, brands must compete across social commerce ecosystems and need to build their visibility infrastructure to find any interest in online marketing.

Health and beauty is moving beyond function and into wellbeing

Alongside these changes in commerce and discovery, the conference also pointed to an important shift in how the category itself is being framed. Health and beauty is increasingly moving beyond purely functional solutions and into a broader wellbeing space shaped by prevention, confidence and emotional relevance.

Sainsbury’s “joyful wellbeing” positioning capture this well. It reflects a broader retail move towards viewing health and beauty not simply as functional needs, but rather as an improvement factor in quality of life. The same theme appeared elsewhere in discussions around wellness, longevity and changing consumer language, with terms such as skin longevity beginning to replace anti-ageing narratives. This matters because it changes the opportunity from sickness to prevention. It is increasingly about helping consumers feel better, live better, and make more proactive choices. Brands that can combine efficacy with a modern, positive and emotionally relevant proposition are likely to be well placed.

Even as digital discovery evolves, the conference also reinforced the importance of physical retail. Stores still matter in health and beauty, but their role is becoming more specific and more demanding. In beauty especially, shoppers still value the ability to test products, compare options, and receive guidance from experts. That is why destination-led retailing are becoming more important. Physical retail now needs to do more than just provide availability, it has to support discovery and decision-making to justify the trip.

Pharmacy remains relevant, even under pressure

Pharmacy remains part of the picture too, although it is clearly under pressure. The pharmacy session highlighted a channel facing growing strain from funding gaps and rising service expectations. At the same time, the wider shift towards self-care, prevention and community-based support suggests pharmacy still has an important long-term role to play. The challenge is that strategic relevance does not always translate neatly into commercial return. For retailers and operators, that creates difficult choices around space, services and proposition. What seems clear is that physical channels are not becoming irrelevant, but they do need to offer something more differentiated: expertise, immediacy, trust, and practical support.

The strongest brands will balance consistency with agility

The final theme running through the conference was that the strongest brands will be those able to balance consistency with agility. The “reimagining the 4-Ps” session reminded us that the fundamentals are still important, but the use and context of them is what has shifted. Product remains central, while price has shifted from mere affordability towards the value a product brings. Place is not specifically about distribution anymore, but is about being easy to discover and easy to choose. Promotion has shifted to rely on a strong foundation of long-term brand building with short term activations sprinkled in on top of that, never on its own though.

The balance of this means different things for challenger and legacy brands. Challenger brands must be able to differentiate, adapt and learn in the fast moving market of health and beauty today. While legacy brands, will need to draw on heritage and leverage awareness in a way to make their products feel relevant in the modern day. Across both, trust is a unifying factor for growth.

Overall, the H&BA conference identified that future growth in health and beauty will come from better serving unmet needs, adapting to new discovery behaviours, and building trust. In an increasingly complex and fast changing market, the winners will be those that are the easiest to find, the most relevant to consumer needs, and those that are easiest to choose compared to the rest.