Amazon Adds Home Healthcare Products To Marketplace

To offer a new brand of medical devices to consumers, Arcadia Group is working with Amazon to sell products like glucose monitors and blood pressure cuffs under the Amazon-exclusive Choice name. The effort was started by Arcadia, though Amazon is becoming more interested in offerings around health, CNBC reported.

Arcadia Group CEO Bob Guest told CNBC, “I approached Amazon last year as they began to expand their healthcare footprint. I felt that something that was missing from their offerings was products for people with diabetes and other chronic disease states.”

Arcadia will sell the products only on Amazon, aiming to serve consumers who face health challenges like diabetes and hypertension. While the brand is exclusive to the eCommerce retailer, it will retain control over production and design. Arcadia Group has also created brands for other retailers, such as Walmart.

Overall, Amazon is taking a new approach to its brands, extending beyond its AmazonBasics and other private label lines: The retailer is rolling out brands that are exclusive to the site, but are not actually owned by the company. While expansion of private-label brands has been a top priority, as One Click Retail noted in a report, Amazon is now focusing on bringing Amazon-exclusive brands made by manufacturers such as First Quality.

First Quality’s Amazon-exclusive brand, Earth + Eden, differs from Amazon’s private-label brands because it is both owned and manufactured by First Quality. Yet the move may seem unusual, as First Quality is working with the very retailer that offers a competing private-label brand for diapers, called Mama Bear. That brand saw explosive growth in the beginning of the year, as its sales rose by more than 40 percent from the second to third quarter. Instead of competing against Amazon, however, First Quality decided to join forces with the eCommerce retailer by launching Earth + Eden.