Suppliers

Vitamins and Supplements

Buying nutritional supplements over the web can be a hit-or-miss proposition. You want to get a quality product at a decent price. You want to get the product you ordered, not be charged and never receive a thing. And you don’t want to end up with ground dog food in your supposed container of whey protein supplement.

In our articles on health and nutrition, we often refer you to sources where you can buy the supplements we mention. We’ve personally bought products from these suppliers ourselves. In particular, we’re fond of two suppliers (Life Extension and Swanson Health Products) from past good experiences with their products and customer service.

We used to recommend VitaGlo, but it appears they have developed serious problems with failing to deliver backordered products so we can no longer recommend them. See below for more details.

Recommended


Life Extension

This organization based in Florida sells quality products, ships on-time for even partial orders they cannot completely fill immediately, and explains up front why there will be a delay when they occasionally run out of stock on popular items, such as during a sale. They generally charge flat rate shipping at reasonable prices, often free or $5.50 for your entire order.

Members get best prices, especially when they order 4 or more containers of a product. The general public is welcome to shop, also, and also benefits from sale pricing. Membership is typically $75 per year, but they sometimes run offers that allow gift memberships to be purchased for lower prices.

Life Extension has a huge quantity of excellent information with extensive references to medical topics and research studies on their website. If you have a question on a medical condition, Life Extension’s web site is likely to have some helpful information.

If you’re not sure about joining as a Life Extension member, click on the banner below to sign up for a free one year subscription to their monthly magazine. Each month features a few major articles on varied health topics, important news highlights on new research, and of course information on many of their new products.


Free Subscription to Life Extension magazine

We think Life Extension has something to offer just about everybody who has an interest in the health of their family and friends.

Life Extension is a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified manufacturer of dietary supplements. They also offer a discount pharmacy service and carry selected supplements from other GMP manufacturers.

Click here to read more about the Life Extension Foundation.


Swanson Health Products

Swanson Health Products carries a huge variety of both their own branded supplements as well as those from dozens of other manufacturers. Their site offers reviews on many products. Shipping is speedy and reliable. They have consistently low prices, and so far their quality has been fine in our initial experiences with ordering from them. They are based in North Dakota.

Swanson Health Products is a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified manufacturer of dietary supplements. They also carry selected supplements from other GMP manufacturers.

Avoid

VitaGlo aka Discount Natural Foods

It used to be that what you see is what you got with this company based in New York. They offer a large selection of products from top manufacturers, low prices, and free ground shipping for most orders over $100 (used to be $50). Unlike some web sites, you don’t get detailed information or reviews on each product they sell. You’ll need to refer to manufacturer web sites for detailed information on each product. Instead, you get lower prices than many other sites, sometimes significantly lower.

Our experience prior to 2016 was a predictable and consistently good customer experience. But that has changed dramatically.

The problem that exists with VitaGlo today is that charge you for your full order and then often fail to ship some of the items ordered and never do deliver them.

For instance, you order 10 items and they ship 9 and write “B/O” or similar notation on the packing slip to indicate the 10th time is backordered. Prior to 2016, our experience was the backordered items were delivered within a few weeks. But since then, what usually happens is that months go by and they fail to ship the “backordered” items yet you were charged for them. If you write an email asking about it, they may say they will take care of it, but then fail to do so. If you write again, they just don’t reply.

Failing to deliver items that were paid for is considered a type of fraud. So it appears that VigaGlo may be committing fraud against many of their customers, as Vitaglo’s failure to deliver items that were paid for is an increasingly common complaint even for former long-time customers.

Unfortunately, VitaGlo’s customer service and order fulfillment practices have dropped to completely unacceptable levels so we can no longer recommend them. If you buy from them, figure that your price savings may be more than offset by items they never send to you.


These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products mentioned in this post and on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The information presented here is for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. Please obtain medical advice from qualified healthcare providers. Pursuant to FTC regulations, please be aware some of the links herein may be affiliate iinks. If you click on them and complete a purchase, this website may earn a commission.