Retail News
- The One-Hour Accept Rule Behind IHR Plugin’s Store Network IHR Plugin has published its service terms: one hour to accept a network order, three to ship it. At minimum wage, any order under about $19 costs the shipping store money, and stores with…
- Natural Health Trends Just Showed What a Black Friday Discount Does to a Supplement Business Natural Health Trends (NHTC) cut prices, gained 1,040 members and made no more money in its third quarter of 2026. Three checks every supplement retailer should run before a Black Friday markdown.
- Visa’s Small Merchant Rate Expansion: What It Is Worth to a Health Store Visa is opening its lower interchange rate to stores with up to $750,000 in Visa sales. Newly eligible health retailers can keep thousands a year, while stores already in the program face a 2027…
- Have That Conversation: What Canadian Health Retailers Need to Know About Kratom Kratom is unauthorized in Canada, but your customers use it, and some of what they buy from you changes how it works. What staff need to know and what to say at the till.
- Sobeys Can No Longer Block the Pharmacy Next Door. The Paperwork Hasn’t Caught Up. IHR read the Competition Tribunal consent agreement behind Empire's property controls deal. Pharmacies and supplement-led health stores are protected, but only for food, only on request, and full-line natural grocers get far less. Four…
- CHFA Launch Pad 2026 : deux finalistes québécois, et ni l’un ni l’autre n’a besoin d’une licence de Santé Canada Deux des huit finalistes du CHFA Launch Pad 2026 sont québécois : Laboratoire Abieze et Les Produits Mooz. Cinq finalistes vendent des aliments, deux des soins personnels, et une seule marque détient un numéro…
- CHFA Launch Pad 2026: Canada’s Innovation Pipeline Has Left the Supplement Aisle Eight emerging Canadian brands pitch for Most Innovative Product at CHFA NOW Toronto on September 25. Five sell food, two sell personal care, and only one carries a natural health product licence. IHR reads…
- Sport Certification Is Moving Into the Prenatal Aisle A sport-doping certification just landed on prenatal vitamins. That move signals how the entire category will compete next—and which brand managers will be left behind. Prenatal vitamins have a new competitive standard. In…
- AI Agents Now Shop at Scale: What Agentic Commerce Means for Natural Health Retail A new NielsenIQ report shows AI agents transacting at consumer scale in China while North American shoppers still refuse to hand over the checkout. IHR’s independent read: the battleground for natural health is the…
- Peptides Are the Question at the Counter. Here’s How to Answer, Merchandise, and Keep the Sale Health Canada's injunction against Canlab Research closed one peptide seller, not the demand. What peptides like BPC-157, GLP-1 mimics and PT-141 actually do, who is asking, and the NPN-licensed natural products to stock, merchandise…