Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 806

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 806
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, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, Pinterest and YouTube. During fiscal year 2025, we continued to increase our investment in paid and organic placements on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Pinterest, resulting in enhanced brand reach. We also organized social media influencer campaigns in key markets. We expect to continue investing in digital engagement activities during fiscal year 2026. Our Natural Grocers mobile application provides a compelling and complementary marketing channel to deliver the same content strategy already in place for our website.

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Advertising. Our advertising activities in fiscal year 2025 included: (i) conducting television advertising campaigns; (ii) conducting radio advertising campaigns in support of new store openings and store relocations; (iii) conducting outdoor advertising campaigns; (iv) conducting targeted direct mail campaigns; (v) newspaper advertising; (vi) utilizing organic search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization and paid search to drive more customer traffic to our website and stores; (vii) investments in paid and organic placements on social media platforms including social media influencer campaigns; and (viii) local store marketing campaigns focused on enhancing customer retention and loyalty in highly competitive markets.

Home Delivery and Pickup Services. As of September 30, 2025, in partnership with a third party, we offered online ordering, with home delivery services at 164 of our stores and pickup services at 17 of our stores. We are continuing to expand these services to more of our stores.

New Store Openings. We use various targeted marketing efforts to support the successful introduction of our new stores in their individual markets. In addition to the distribution of our Health Hotline magazine and Internet and social media efforts targeted to the region, we utilize direct mail distribution of introductory booklets and postcards promoting our brand and providing discounts and other incentives for new customers. Our new store promotional activities include gift card and prize giveaways, sweepstakes, appearances by our sponsorship partners, cash donations to local food banks, and participation by local community leaders and organizations.

Pre-Ordering of Holiday Turkeys. We offer an in-store and online process to pre-order organic and free-range turkeys for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Competition

The grocery and dietary supplement retail business is a large, fragmented and highly competitive industry, with few barriers to entry. Our competition varies by market and includes supermarkets such as Kroger and Safeway; mass or discount retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target; natural and gourmet markets such as Whole Foods and The Fresh Market; foreign-based discount