A more diversified product lineup helped online vitamin and health supplements retailer Vitacost.com Inc. grow sales in the third quarter.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Vitacost.com, No. 90 in the Internet Retailer Top 500, reported:

• Sales of $63.5 million, a 26.2% increase from sales of $50.3 million for the third quarter of 2010.
• Net loss of $5.3 million compared with a net loss of $5.6 million.
• The number of new customers increased 25.8% to 180,536 from 143,524.
• The number of active customers grew year over year 18.2% to 1.3 million from 1.1 million
• The number of orders increased 27.0% to 856,842 from 674,438.
• The average order was $74.25, down 5.0% from $78.18 in the prior year.

“We continue to make progress on our initiatives to grow sales as we increased our customer base and the number of orders shipped in the quarter,” says CEO Jeffrey J. Horowitz. “The consumer responded positively to our new products and promotional offerings in both proprietary and third-party brands. We will continue to invest in our infrastructure to have the best team, systems and products in place to position Vitacost.com for long-term profitable growth.”

Vitacost.com says the addition of more products, especially more private-label brands, was a key contributor to higher sales. “The company added 1,297 new SKUs in the third quarter of 2011, with 307 new products in its core category,” says Horowitz. “We continue to focus on faster-growing categories such as food, sports nutrition/bodybuilding and personal care.”

For the first three quarters:

• Sales increased 19.6% to $193.1 million from $161.4 million in the first three quarters of 2010.

• Net loss was $11.2 million compared with a net loss of $4.5 million in the prior year quarter.