Walmart has quietly become one of America's leading health destinations
In fact, Walmart has a thriving health scene.
Just ask Noah Bremen, CEO and founder of Bdirect Retail. He's helped market and sell products such as Hydroxycut, Five Hour Energy, The Shake Weight, The Hollywood Diet, and The Perfect Pushup, The Thigh Master, Naked Juice, and VitaCoco coconut water. He's also helped sell Beats by Dre headphones. But in part, he's helped bring wellness to an unsuspecting market.
"It's shocking, Walmart probably sells more fitness items than anybody," Bremen, who often works with Walmart and other big box retailers, told Business Insider. "So they'll continue to try to dominate that category, for sure, they absolutely want to - that's their goal, absolutely."
He points out that Walmart is becoming healthier. Its updated Neighborhood Market stores - which threaten - are proof.
He believes that Walmart is just bringing wellness to more people.
"I think Walmart, for sure, I they are trying to do a great job of making it bigger and better and understanding whats really healthy and what's not so I think and they do a good job of ... understanding what's good," he said
But ultimately, it all boils down to figuring out how to sell these products to mass markets; it's different than selling to an urbane class. Bremen said that it's all about "simple messages and delivering on promises."
Bremen, for instance, helped sell The Hollywood Diet, a controversial cleanse that promises to help customers shed ten pounds in two days. (The company also hawks the suspicious cookie diet.) But he knows that the people buying this aren't those who are going to fancy boutique classes.
"Lose ten pounds in days, like who doesn't want to do that?" He said. "At the end of the day, it's still motivating to get people to get going. Listen, not everyone is gonna go do Barry's Boot Camp, but if they can get some kinda jump start, that's great."
When it comes to the mass market, he says, "you have three seconds to kind of get that point across."
The Shake Weight, for instance, is pretty clear. (Bremen also says it really works.)
One health concept he doesn't think the mass market is ready for, though, are certain beauty regimens, such as intravenous vitamins.
In the mean time, by bringing simplified, digestible health products to the masses, Walmart is a surprising competitor in the industry. Arguably, it's not a threat to the industry, since people who love boutique fitness classes have that, but it permits the scene to not be reserved for those who can afford the luxurious Equinox.
"I don't think they threaten it [the fitness scene], I think they add to it," Bremen said. "I think they're just making it more available to the mass market."