Vitacost made many of the supplements it sold, and that fattened its margins. It sold vitamins and health products online at low prices, alongside national brands. It shipped from its own warehouses to customers across the country. Shoppers liked the deep discounts and the brands their local stores did not carry. Vitacost went public in September 2009, when few retailers were growing and online shopping kept gaining ground.

A Catalog That Went Online

Wayne Gorsek founded the business in 1994 as a catalog company. He bet that people who bought supplements regularly would shop by price and convenience. A direct seller, he reasoned, could beat the markup of health food stores. Vitacost moved online early and invested in its own manufacturing. Free shipping thresholds and frequent coupons kept customers reordering every few months.

Kroger Buys the Warehouses

Vitacost priced its IPO at $12 a share in September 2009. Its years as a public company were hard, with management turnover, accounting questions and losses. In 2014 the grocery chain Kroger bought Vitacost for about $280 million to build up its online health business. Kroger kept Vitacost running as an online store. It used Vitacost's warehouses and know-how to ship health products to its own shoppers.

Cover: Pergola with Oranges, Thomas Fearnley. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an orange grove (natural health).