My purpose of writing this piece is to help a friend who is starting to produce and market a new health care supplement.

Malaysians are quite sophisticated and discerning. When it comes to spending their hard-earned money, they are very careful. Although Malaysia presents a strong market for growth, as well as the point of entry for a regional presence, there is already an over-supply of health care supplement products in the market.

Whenever I enter a pharmacy outlet, I am surprised to see a large part of the display shelves are filled with health care supplement products of various brands. Most of them are well known brands, some are less known and a very few are new brands. The new brands are always placed at the bottom shelves or less prominent places.  

The challenges faced by health care supplement products are indeed many and varied: from a changing retail landscape to increasingly discerning consumers. It is not easy to market any health care supplement product, let alone a new unknown brand.

My suggestion:

The best way to market a new product is advertisement by which the new product can become better known.

Another way is to give special discount to the pharmacies on condition they display the new product on the top shelves or more prominent places.

Another way is to sell through Alibaba, e-commerce, online shopping.