Nutraceutical Industry: Growth, Regulations & Merchant Accounts

Nutraceuticals are a booming business that’s growing in leaps and bounds; every year more profitable than the year before. The industry’s compound annual growth rate is expected to increase by 7.5% from 2019 to 2024 and at this point it is expected that those numbers will continue to climb.

Consumer Awareness

There’s good reason for this rise in growth and profit. The world today is plagued with major health issues. Today’s consumer is choosing to deal with these issues by taking responsibility for their own prevention and healing and not just depending on doctors and medicine to get them through.

Consumers are educating themselves in these matters and are discovering that food can play a major role in the determent and relief of disease, illness and chronic pain. Given that nutraceuticals are foods and beverages claiming to provide health giving benefits, it’s no wonder that their popularity is on the rise in such huge numbers.

As nutraceutical usage continues to rise and consumers get to experience their healing benefits more and more, the demand for an increase in choice of products and brands will occur and the nutraceutical industry will feel the need to continually branch out into other areas as well as improve existing products.

In addition, as the focus on environmental issues becomes more and more prevalent, there will also be a demand for eco-friendly packaging, as health conscious, responsible consumers will want to see nutraceutical companies take responsibility for a healthy planet, as well as a healthy population.

Regulatory Enforcement

At present, the nutraceutical industry is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration or any other governmental organization. That’s because there isn’t an officially accepted definition of what a nutraceutical actually is. Minus an official industry definition, no organization is specifically appointed to regulate the industry. Without regulations in place, safety and efficiency issues are very much in question and this will continue to be a problem as the industry continues to grow. Eventually this issue will have to be addressed, as health conscious consumers demand that regulations be put into place.

Difficulties In Obtaining Merchant Accounts

Presently, the lack of regulatory enforcement has created a problem for start-up nutraceutical businesses, in obtaining merchant accounts, as the industry has thus been labeled as “high risk.” Without a merchant account, an online nutraceutical business cannot accept credit and debit cards as payment, resulting in their being unable to operate at optimum capacity.

Banks and processing companies, the providers of merchant accounts, feel that without regulatory control, there is too much room for error, fraud and legality issues. These are the types of problems that generally lead to too many chargebacks, a situation that has also placed nutraceutical businesses in a “high risk” category, resulting in it being very difficult for these businesses to obtain their much needed merchant accounts. If they are somehow lucky enough to be approved for a merchant account, these “high risk” start-ups end up signing contracts for protracted periods of time and paying twice as much as lower risk companies.

Help Is Available

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. Start-up nutraceutical companies do not have to go it alone. We’re First Card Payments and we specialize entirely in obtaining merchant accounts for all “high risk” industries. This is the only thing we do and we’ve been doing it successfully for twenty years. We have the relationships, experience and know how necessary to assist your business in obtaining a “high risk” merchant account at a very reasonable rate. Our success rate is second to none. And we don’t stop there. We will aid and support you long after we’ve helped you obtain your merchant account. As long as you’re in business, we’ll be there if you need us. You can count on that. First Card Payments is committed to providing you and all of our clients with the best possible experience when it comes to obtaining and maintaining your “high risk” merchant account. We’ll get your business on the fast track to success asap!

Find us at: FirstCardPayments.com

Joyce Hope( Merchant Account Specialist )

Joyce Hope is a writer who specializes in merchant accounts. She has worked for First Card Payments since 2017.