Why Health & Fitness Ecommerce Needs Automated Claims
January is boom time for the health & fitness industry. Gyms see a 25-30% increase in sign-ups (12% of new gym memberships start in January) and Health & Fitness also dominate New Year's resolutions, with exercising more (25%), eating healthier (23%) and improving physical health (21%) making up three of the top five in 2026.
While this spike is undoubtedly good news for Health & Fitness e-commerce - i.e. sales of exercise equipment go up 60% in January - the surge in sales volume leads to more delivery issues and more strains on your customer team's time.
But automating courier claims can cut your team's claims processing time by 80% and improve Health & Fitness claims success rates by over 4x.
Here's why Logistics and Operations Managers in Health & Fitness e-commerce should make automated courier claims their 2026 resolution.
More Health & Fitness orders = more delivery issues
Be it giving up alcohol for Dry January or registering for organised running events, January has become synonymous with positive health changes. In a month when other e-commerce sectors see sales dip, this wellness push enables Health & Fitness to boost its revenues - with sports and outdoors retailers seeing a 30% revenue increase compared to the monthly average and health & beauty enjoying a 16% rise.
But January's higher order volumes and adverse delivery conditions also leads to a spike in delivery issues for Health & Fitness orders.
Manual claims processing = frazzled Logistics/Ops teams
Ensuring your protein packs, sportsgear or dietary goods arrive on time is crucial for annual takings. Every lost or damaged package is more than just a dent on the final P&L sheet - it can lead to current customers turning elsewhere in a competition-heavy Health & Fitness market.
To make things worse, delivery issues have a major impact on your team's time too. Be it handling customer complaints, tracking lost shipments, replacing damaged items or processing courier claims, delivery issues take up time that would be better served elsewhere.
Take Bulk, for example. Bulk sells a huge range of sports nutrition supplements, gym clothing and training accessories online. Due to the number of lost/damaged shipments, its logistics team would spend hours manually processing complex courier claims and only get compensation about 16% of the time (mainly due to couriers' strict T&Cs and complicated claims forms).
Automated courier claims = happy Logistics/Ops Managers
From spotting delivery issues before they reach the customer (and alerting the couriers to rectify the situation before it becomes a problem) to automating the entire claims process from checking eligibility to filing claims forms, automated courier claims saves you and your team a huge amount of time.
Bulk, for example, reduced the time spent on claims processing by 80%.
"From a personal perspective, Claimit has freed up the logistics departments to focus on warehousing, transport and fulfillment of millions of products, and enabled customer service to prioritise support tickets - instead of getting bogged down by claims." - John Beazley, Logistics Manager, Bulk.
What's more, as Claimit knows what information and documentation to provide for each claim, you cut out the manual errors and increase claims success rate. Bulk's claim success rate grew by over 4x.
Happy customers are loyal customers
While Health & Fitness resolutions might falter - 80% of new gym sign-ups quit in the first five months and 75% of people give up their New Year's resolutions after one month - the global wellness trend is still on the rise, especially among millennials and Gen Z. According to McKinsey 2025 data, the wellness market - covering health, nutrition and fitness - is worth $2 trillion. 84% of US consumers and 79% of UK consumers say wellness is a "top" or "important" priority.
To remain competitive in such a crowded market, you need satisfied customers and an efficient team. That's why Logistics and Ops Managers should embrace automated courier claims in 2026.
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