US Nutrition Ecommerce Industry Report

Steady Traffic Recovery Following a Post-2024 Contraction

US nutrition e-commerce stores experienced a pronounced traffic peak in late 2024, with average monthly traffic reaching 8,719.9 visitors in November 2024 before declining sharply to 5,141.1 in January 2025—a drop of -41.1% in just two months. This contraction likely reflects both seasonal post-holiday normalization and broader market cooling. Since that trough, traffic has gradually recovered through 2025, climbing from 5,141.1 in January 2025 to 6,137.3 in December 2025 (+19.4%), before settling at 5,882.7 in January 2026. Year-over-year, January 2026 traffic is up +14.5% compared to January 2025, signaling that the segment is on a positive trajectory despite remaining well below the 2024 autumn highs. The consistent monthly gains across mid-to-late 2025 suggest that audience re-engagement efforts and seasonal demand cycles are beginning to stabilize the segment's baseline.

Organic Search Dominates the Channel Mix

As of January 2026, SEO traffic accounts for 89.9% of total visits across US nutrition stores—representing 2,855,224 out of 3,176,656 total monthly visits. This heavy reliance on organic search underscores the segment's dependence on content and search ranking performance rather than paid acquisition. Organic social contributes a meaningful secondary share at 7.6% (242,653 visits), while paid search accounts for just 1.4% (44,395 visits) and paid social for 1.1% (34,384 visits). The combined paid channel share of 2.5% is strikingly low, suggesting that most stores in this segment either prioritize cost-efficient organic strategies or have not yet scaled paid media investment significantly. Reinforcing the channel's strength, organic search traffic grew +10.9% year-over-year—a healthy rate that indicates sustained improvements in search visibility, likely driven by content marketing, product page optimization, and growing brand authority within the nutrition vertical.

Revenue Trends Mirror Traffic Patterns, With Compression Persisting

Average store revenue followed a trajectory nearly parallel to traffic throughout the observed period. Revenue peaked in November 2024 at $20,246.69 per store before declining to $10,096.96 in March 2025—a -50.1% contraction from peak to trough. Recovery has been gradual but consistent: revenue climbed to $12,539.70 by December 2025 and stands at $11,534.22 in January 2026. Comparing January 2026 ($11,534.22) to January 2025 ($11,086.59), average revenue is up +4.0% year-over-year—a more modest gain than the +14.5% traffic growth over the same interval. This divergence between traffic recovery and revenue recovery suggests that while stores are attracting more visitors, conversion rates or average order values may be under pressure. The implication is that recovering traffic volume alone is not translating proportionally into revenue, pointing to potential opportunities for stores to optimize on-site conversion, upsell mechanics, or product mix to better monetize the returning audience.

Organic Traffic Trends: Recovery Stalling After 2024 Peak

US nutrition e-commerce stores recorded an average of 5,287 organic search visits in January 2026, reflecting a year-over-year organic traffic growth of +10.9% compared to January 2025's average of 4,963. However, this figure sits well below the segment's peak performance seen in late 2024, when average SEO traffic reached 8,269 in October 2024 and 8,241 in November 2024. The sharp post-holiday contraction that began in December 2024 (6,572) accelerated into early 2025, bottoming out at 4,574 in March 2025, and the recovery since then has been modest at best. Despite the year-over-year improvement, monthly SEO volumes throughout 2025 have consistently tracked 30–40% below the comparable peak months of the prior year, suggesting the segment has not recaptured its autumn 2024 momentum.

Organic SERPs grew +2.5% over the same period, indicating that indexed keyword presence expanded only marginally relative to the traffic gains. This divergence between SERP growth and traffic growth implies that stores are ranking for incrementally more keywords but that ranking quality—position and click-through rates—is improving at a faster pace than raw keyword counts. SEO traffic dominates the channel mix: the overwhelming majority of the 537 tracked stores fall into the under-50k monthly visits tier, confirming that this segment is composed primarily of small-to-mid-sized operators without the traffic volumes typically associated with established national brands.

Domain Authority Under Pressure Despite Backlink Expansion

Average PageRank for the segment stands at 2.81 as of the most recent period, representing a year-over-year decline of -6.1%. The authority trend line tells a clear story: PageRank peaked at 3.64 in October–November 2024, collapsed to 3.02 by January 2025, partially recovered to 3.61 in September 2025, and has since declined again to 2.81 in January 2026. This volatility is notable and suggests the segment is sensitive to algorithm updates or link profile fluctuations rather than benefiting from stable, compounding authority growth.

The backlink data over the same window presents an interesting contrast. Average backlinks across tracked stores expanded substantially through mid-to-late 2025, reaching a high of approximately 28,621 in July 2025 before moderating to around 20,497 by January 2026. Referring domains followed a similar trajectory, rising from under 200 in late 2024 to a peak of roughly 1,142 in July 2025, before settling at approximately 837 by January 2026. The disconnect between rising backlink counts and falling PageRank scores suggests that link quality, rather than volume, is the constraining factor—many of the acquired links may originate from lower-authority sources that contribute limited domain equity.

SEO Concentration and Structural Limitations

The traffic distribution data underscores a structural ceiling facing the segment: all 537 stores with measurable SEO traffic fall into the under-50k monthly visits category, with zero stores reaching the 100k–250k or over-250k tiers. This concentration at the lower end of the traffic spectrum reflects the competitive dynamics of the nutrition vertical, where large retailers and content-heavy supplement brands command the majority of high-intent organic keywords. For the average US nutrition store, SEO remains a primary but limited acquisition channel—accounting for the bulk of total traffic (approximately 89.9% of total visits in January 2026, based on 5,287 SEO visits against 5,883 total), yet constrained in absolute scale. Closing the gap to higher traffic tiers will likely require sustained investment in content authority, technical SEO, and link quality improvements that translate into PageRank recovery rather than continued erosion.

Paid Search Spend Collapses Heading Into Early 2026

US nutrition e-commerce stores have experienced a sharp contraction in paid search investment over the past several months. Average paid search spend peaked dramatically in August 2025 at $2,214.42 before entering a sustained decline, falling to $604.94 in December 2025 and bottoming out at $397.50 in January 2026—a drop of -82.1% from the August peak in just five months. Year-over-year, paid search cost growth registered -65.0%, signaling a broad pullback in Google Ads commitment across the segment rather than isolated budget adjustments.

Despite this retreat, the segment still outspends the global average considerably. January 2026 Google Ads spend for active stores averaged $710.68, which is 292.5% of the global average of $242.95. This premium positioning suggests that while nutrition stores are cutting back, their baseline spend remains meaningfully elevated relative to the broader e-commerce population—reflecting the category's historically competitive keyword environment around supplement and wellness terms.

Paid Traffic Share Erodes as Organic Dependence Grows

The decline in spend has translated directly into reduced paid search traffic contribution. In January 2026, paid search accounted for just 4.4% of total traffic—the lowest share recorded across the entire dataset, which spans back to January 2024. This contrasts sharply with the segment's peak paid reliance in April 2024, when paid search drove 22.7% of total visits, averaging 1,725 paid sessions per store. Year-over-year paid traffic growth came in at -55.1%, consistent with the cost pullback.

Total traffic levels also softened: January 2026 averaged 7,685 visits per store, down from 10,817 in October 2024, the dataset's high-water mark. The compression of both spend and traffic share suggests stores are either leaning more heavily on organic channels or simply accepting lower total visit volumes. Notably, November and December 2025 saw paid search percentages of 5.8% and 5.0% respectively, even as total traffic recovered somewhat—indicating the reduced paid investment is structural rather than seasonal.

Platform Adoption Remains Narrow, Meta Spend Outpaces Google on a Per-Store Basis

Active platform adoption across the segment is limited. In the most recent month, just 24.0% of stores ran Google Ads, while only 3.1% ran Meta Ads—figures that are broadly consistent with year-to-date adoption rates of 25.9% and 3.2%, respectively. The low Meta Ads adoption rate is particularly notable given that stores running Meta campaigns spent an average of $3,021.11, compared to the global average of $2,866.26—5.4% above the global benchmark. This indicates that the minority of nutrition stores active on Meta are committing substantial budgets, even if few participate at all.

Total paid media spend across both platforms averaged $2,082.02 per store for the segment, 224.3% of the global average of $928.11. This outsized aggregate spend, concentrated among a relatively small share of active advertisers, points to a bifurcated market: a core group of well-funded nutrition brands maintaining aggressive paid media strategies, while the majority of stores in the segment rely on non-paid acquisition channels entirely.

Instagram Remains the Dominant Social Channel, Though Posting Cadence Slips

Instagram continues to be the primary organic social driver for US nutrition e-commerce stores, accounting for 8.3% of total traffic in January 2026 (averaging 522.93 visits per store). This share has held relatively stable across the trailing six months, oscillating between 7.3% and 8.8%, suggesting a mature but consistent audience relationship. However, posting frequency declined meaningfully heading into the new year: average posts per week dropped from 2.88 in December 2025 to 2.21 in January 2026, a -23.2% month-over-month reduction. Given that Instagram traffic share also dipped slightly from 7.3% in December to 8.3% in January—recovering alongside a broader total traffic decline—the lower posting cadence does not appear to have triggered an immediate traffic collapse, though sustained reductions in content output typically compress reach over time.

Follower distribution reveals a segment heavily concentrated at smaller scale: 153 stores fall under 10k followers and another 153 sit in the 10k–50k range, collectively representing the majority of the tracked store population. Only 23 stores have crossed the 250k threshold. This distribution underscores why average engagement rate sits at just 0.009%—a figure consistent with the dilution effect seen across larger follower counts industry-wide—and points to significant upside potential for stores that can grow audiences into the 50k–100k tier, where engagement economics typically improve.

TikTok Contribution Stabilizes at a Modest but Persistent Share

TikTok's contribution to store traffic has stabilized in the 2.4%–2.9% range across the most recent five months, landing at 2.4% (166.66 average visits) in January 2026. This relative steadiness follows a volatile early-year period in which the channel's share swung dramatically—from 6.7% in February 2025 down to just 1.1% in June 2025—likely reflecting the regulatory uncertainty around TikTok's US operating status during that window. Since mid-2025, the platform has recovered to a consistent, if modest, contribution level. Weekly upload cadence was essentially flat month-over-month, edging up from 2.50 to 2.56 uploads per week (+2.4%), signaling that nutrition brands have largely maintained their TikTok content investment rather than pulling back. At roughly 2.6 uploads per week, TikTok posting frequency is now approaching the segment's broader average of 3.13 posts per week across all platforms, indicating meaningful resource allocation to short-form video.

Organic Social Momentum Builds Into Early 2026

Broader organic social traffic—capturing channels beyond Instagram and TikTok—has followed a clear upward trajectory since mid-2025. After registering near-zero contribution in Q1 2025 (just 0.1% in March), organic social climbed to 7.6% of total traffic in January 2026, equivalent to an average of 449.36 visits per store. This is the highest organic social share recorded across the entire tracked period. The growth from April 2025 (1.7%) to January 2026 (7.6%) represents a substantial channel maturation, with October and November 2025 each reaching 7.1% before the January figure exceeded both. The aggregate picture across channels—Instagram at 8.3%, TikTok at 2.4%, and broader organic social at 7.6%—suggests that social-referred traffic now constitutes a meaningful and compounding portion of the nutrition segment's digital acquisition mix, particularly as paid channel costs continue to pressure margin. Stores accelerating content output across all three vectors are best positioned to capture share as this trend matures.

Lighthouse Performance Scores Signal Ongoing Technical Challenges

US nutrition e-commerce stores recorded an average Lighthouse Performance score of 49/100 in January 2026, reflecting a -1.0% decline from the previous month's score of 49.4. This downward trend in page performance suggests that stores in this segment continue to struggle with core technical metrics such as load speed, render-blocking resources, and image optimization — factors that directly influence conversion rates and paid traffic efficiency.

In contrast, the average Lighthouse SEO score held relatively steady at 90.3/100, compared to 90.3 the prior month — effectively flat with 0% change month-over-month. While SEO scores remain strong, this consistency should not be mistaken for progress; the segment is maintaining a ceiling rather than breaking through one. Accessibility scores showed marginal improvement, moving from 86.7 to 87.0, a modest but positive signal for stores working toward broader compliance and user inclusivity standards.

The gap between SEO performance (90.3/100) and technical performance (49/100) is notable. Stores in this segment are clearly prioritizing on-page SEO fundamentals — meta structures, crawlability, and keyword signals — while technical site health remains a persistent weak point. For a category where product discovery often begins through organic search, this disconnect may be limiting the downstream benefits of otherwise sound SEO work.

Catalog Size Skews Heavily Toward Smaller Assortments

The SKU distribution across US nutrition stores reveals a strongly concentrated market of smaller-catalog operators. Of 541 stores analyzed, 419 (77.4%) carry between 0 and 250 SKUs, while only 78 stores (14.4%) fall in the 251–500 SKU bracket. Stores with 501–1,000 products account for just 33 stores (6.1%), and those exceeding 1,000 SKUs represent a combined 11 stores — fewer than 2% of the segment.

This concentration toward lean catalogs is consistent with the direct-to-consumer nutrition model, where many brands focus on a tight, hero-product-led assortment rather than broad marketplace-style inventories. However, smaller catalogs place greater pressure on individual product page performance and SEO, making the low Lighthouse Performance scores even more consequential — every page matters more when there are fewer of them.

Average Pricing Stable Through Late 2025, With a Sharp February 2026 Spike

Average product pricing across US nutrition stores remained remarkably stable from August 2025 through January 2026, hovering in a tight band between $49.08 and $50.77. The low point occurred in September 2025 at $49.08, recovering to $50.76 by October and sustaining near that level through January 2026 at $50.56.

February 2026 marks a significant departure: average pricing jumped to $68.13, representing a +34.7% increase over January's figure. This spike is substantial and warrants interpretation with some caution — it may reflect a shift in catalog mix toward premium or bundled products, seasonal promotional resets, or a change in the stores contributing data for that period rather than a uniform industry-wide price increase. Regardless of cause, if this pricing elevation persists, it will have material implications for conversion rates, average order value benchmarks, and competitive positioning — particularly for stores already underperforming on site speed, where price sensitivity among consumers tends to be amplified by friction in the purchase experience.