I will say that there have been few companies that went to a lifestyle brand but overtime u don't see their products anymore...latest being pes .I would see alot of their products everywhere from gnc to vitamin shoppe n smaller chains n now only thing I see is 3 different flavors of their protein...I always wonder if they did this to make more money why are they disappearing then? You would think they be bigger .
I can answer your question - I'm in no way justifying the decisions that brands make, I can only offer industry insight as to why they make them.
The industry has changed dramatically - and a lot of that change hasn't been in positive ways.
How/where you saw brands used to be a good indicator as to how popular a brand was or how well they are doing, but that has changed a lot over the years.
Now days, the main focus of many brands is on direct to consumer sales, sales on Amazon, and sales in international markets.
In a lot of cases, even if it appears that a brand isn't doing well because you don't see them in smaller brick and mortars, they're likely doing better than ever, just through different channels.
As a lot of brands grow, they stop selling to smaller brick and mortars. It used to be that they would sell to distributors, who would then sell to the brick and mortars, but one of the major distributors to brick and mortars has had a lot of issues and its caused many brands to no longer sell to them. So that may be one reason you don't see some brands in smaller shops the way that you used to.
Direct to consumer marketing is the way a lot of brands go now because the profits are higher and with the higher profits, they can afford more advertising.
Also, many brands focus almost solely on Amazon now. It's sad, but there are Amazon brands that non-Amazon customers have never heard of that will probably do more volume in two weeks than a lot of great brands will do in a full year.
In PES's case, you see that their focus has been on all 3 of the things I mentioned - direct sales, Amazon, and international - and in doing so, their yearly sales and their profit margins are likely at the highest they've ever been.
Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not condoning anything, just answering your question.
As a customer, its always sad to see a brand you support in any industry go a direction that is opposite of why you supported them to begin with.