d it out over the fate of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries last year, with Woolworths eventually dropping its bid after failing to assuage pharmacist’s fears that it would monopolise the industry.  So, what is it that makes healthcare such an attractive secondary market for retailers? It’s already massive, and it’s still growing.  The health and wellness industry is estimated to be worth around US$2 trillion, and, following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is growing at a rate of 5.3 per cent per year, according to Frost & Sullivan. Amazon’s dive into healthcare follows a push into grocery, with the US$13.7 billion acquisition of Wholefoods, and a US$8.45 billion purchase of TV and movie studio MGM Studios. “What they’re doing is a strategy in search of growth in adjacencies to this core area that might be a bit constrained in and of itself,” Emilie Feldman, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told CNBC.  “So e-commerce is e-commerce, but can we search for niches that might be faster-growing like health care, or can we accelerate our ability to get before people’s eyeballs through ads or something like that through MGM?” Another benefit beyond access to new customers is a potential wealth of new data points to gather.  Executive director at VMLY&R Global Jon Bird recently wrote in Inside Retail magazine that sharing data between health and fashion arms of a business could result in better fitting clothes, for example, assuming customers are comfortable with this data being shared.  Good health is good business It isn’t just big players that are getting on board, either. A raft of health-related start-ups are launching to capitalise on traditionally underserved customer bases. For example, Pilot is an online platform for men, who traditionally avoid visiting the doctor or psychologist.  There’s also women’s health-focused Cranel, which has taken aim at the failure of society to normalise and facilitate the treatment of UTIs. Cranel co-founders Erica Schultz and Christina Jurzenski told Inside Retail the business started out of necessity: largely as a way to help women treat UTIs by way of a concentrated cranberry shot, after discovering that there was no easy way to do so. “We were amazed that there wasn’t a dedicated product for women [experiencing UTIs],” Schultz said. The initial plan was to get the business’ product into health-food stores, but when Covid hit, the business pivoted online and saw massive success — selling out multiple times before completing a $1 million funding round to expand its business. The success of their venture has led Cranel to expand beyond Australia, now operating within the US as well – a market that is more open to subscription services, according to Jurzenski. And, though more big-box stores are getting involved in the healthcare space, Schultz views it as a double edged sword.  “I think it’s good, but people want things that work and are not just for show, and [taking care of customers’ health] has to come from a place of authenticity,” Shultz said.  “When big-box stores do it, it’s cool to see more products on the shelf but is it coming from a genuine place? A lot of customers really value authenticity.”