Andrew Laudato, Chief Operating Officer at The Vitamin Shoppe, challenged the perception that an omnichannel approach creates a situation where the channels could potentially compete with each other.
“Customers who shop multiple channels actually are the very best customers,” said Laudato. “We would like our customers to shop how, when, and where they prefer, and even for an individual customer at different times in different parts of your journey, that would be a different channel.”
The company has built a retail ecosystem designed to support different stages of the consumer journey. For instance, a shopper starting a new fitness routine may visit a physical store to consult with the in-house “health enthusiasts” for tailored advice, he said. Once a regimen is established, that same customer may shift to subscription-based replenishment or e-commerce convenience.
This flexible approach reflects broader shifts in retail behavior, with consumers increasingly expecting seamless movement between physical and digital environments.
Consumers can now access a range of purchasing channels at The Vitamin Shoppe, he said, including traditional in-store shopping, ship-to-home orders placed in-store, buy online at vitaminshoppe.com and pick up in-store, same-day delivery via DoorDash, and even order in one store and pick it up in a different store (“so every store doesn’t carry the same thing”).
With approximately 650 retail locations across the U.S., the company is increasingly treating its stores as distribution nodes to rival larger e-commerce players.
“If you think of each store not just as retail, but as a distribution point, we cover the U.S. pretty well,” he said.
BOSS, or Buy Online, Ship from Store, allows the company to fulfill orders from store inventory when distribution centers are out of stock and positions The Vitamin Shoppe to compete more aggressively with Amazon by reducing delivery times.
“We like to say we can be faster than Amazon,” he said.
The company also sells outside its own ‘four walls’ via Amazon, while its private brands are also available via the Instacart app, the Uber Eats app, and Door Dash.
“We have every possible way we could think of to be truly omni. What does omni mean? It’s ‘many’, many channels, and each one unique to the customer’s needs at that moment,” said Laudato.
AI investments across operations, stores, and customer experience
Artificial intelligence is playing an expanding role across the organization, from internal productivity to customer-facing tools.
At the corporate level, employee productivity has been enhanced through the rollout of Microsoft Copilot, said Laudato, while AI is also being embedded into analytics and inventory management, shifting to machine learning-driven models.
As reported recently by NutraIngredients, The Vitamin Shoppe has begun experimenting with AI-driven customer engagement tools. A flagship example is its “Shop Advisor” installation in a New York City store, where customers interact with a touchscreen interface to receive product recommendations and educational content.
The company plans to expand this capability by equipping store associates with AI-enabled tools on iPads, but with the emphasis on having a human in the middle.
“At the Vitamin Shoppe, we spend a lot of time and energy and money educating every one of our health enthusiasts on products and knowledge, but as we all know in this industry, it changes a lot. It’s really difficult for one person to know all that, and we do a good job of it, but with AI we’ll accelerate that and let our health enthusiasts have this data at their fingertips, and then apply that with their own knowledge and common sense to advise the customer,” said Laudato.
The future: Personalized health and agentic commerce
Looking ahead, Laudato is optimistic about the industry’s prospects, noting that people are more engaged about their health, and he expects that to continue.
“Our whole industry is on an upswing,” he said. “I really like the word healthspan, not just living longer, but living better longer. And with more education, I think the consumers are going to be way more knowledgeable. They already are way more knowledgeable, but that will continue, and I do expect there to be a lot of innovation in products, so I think ingredients, forms, methods will continue to improve, which is exciting for all of us.
And in five to 10 years, Laudato thinks agentic commerce will be huge. “I believe people will have their individual AI agents, and that’s why, for retailers, you got to make sure that your content has been syndicated properly… I think agentic AI will be a normal part of our lives, and I’m personally excited about it.”
Watch the video for the full interview.