The Vitamin Shoppe Franchise: How Much Does It Cost to Open?

The Vitamin Shoppe is a nutritional supplement retailer that offers an assortment of vitamins, minerals, sports nutrition, natural beauty products and homeopathic remedies from its own proprietary brands as well as 700 others. Although founded in 1977, it wasn’t until 2021—when consumer interest spiked due to the COVID pandemic—that The Vitamin Shoppe began offering franchise opportunities as a subsidiary of Franchise Group.

The Vitamin Shoppe currently has more than 680 stores in 44 states in the U.S., as well as Puerto Rico. Its franchise owners are referred to as “FranchiseVees.”

The estimated investment for opening a Vitamin Shoppe location ranges from $528,000 to $976,000. This includes a franchise fee of $39,900 and required $200,000 in liquidity. FranchiseVees must have a net worth of at least $750,000.

In addition, FranchiseVees must pay the franchisor a royalty fee of 5% and a variable marketing fee of 2-3% of their revenue.

According to its 2023 Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), The Vitamin Shoppe’s top stores earned an average of $2,053,043 in revenue and paid an average of $411,633 in contributions.

No prior business or franchise experience is health and wellness is necessary. According to The Vitamin Shoppe’s franchise website, “[a]n ideal FranchiseVee has a growth mindset to help develop new markets, strong business acumen and expertise, and a passion for health and wellness.”

Franchise owners receive 19 hours of classroom and 88 hours of on-the-job training in advance of — and through — the store opening. This includes finding the ideal location for foot and drive-by traffic, optimizing merchandise displays, facilitating customer relations, systematic inventory stocking and the buying power of a strong supply chain.

In addition to its comprehensive training program, The Vitamin Shoppe provides FranchiseVees with dedicated marketing and branding tools to help create store awareness and increase sales. Marketing channels include national advertising campaigns, SEO and web development, loyalty program apps and social media.

The Vitamin Shoppe bills itself as the “first fully omnichannel franchisor in the specialty retail segment.” This means FranchiseVees will earn a commission from in-store purchases, 2-hour pickup orders, auto delivery subscriptions initiated in the store and website sales shipped to the owner’s territory.

The brand has spent decades developing and honing its innovative technology that ensures FranchiseVees can easily track and restock their inventory without having to go through multiple vendors.