Healthy Online Shopping Just Got Easier
10 Tips for Buying Health & Wellness Supplements Online

With the desire to save money and the added convenience of personal delivery, more health conscious shoppers are now choosing to purchase their health and wellness supplements online as opposed to the traditional brick and mortar health store. With the huge selection of online nutrition stores out there, what can you do to prevent the common pitfalls and traps that many people succumb to when purchasing health and wellness products online.

1. Visible Contact Information. Make sure the online store clearly posts their contact information. This is a very important part of finding a credible site. Visible contact information enhances credibility and trust. If you cannot find the company’s business address and/or phone number immediately, be cautious providing this website any valuable information and more importantly any money.
    
2. Read Store Policies. These include Returns, Damaged/Incorrect Orders, Backorders, Security…etc. Good health and wellness supplement websites will clearly describe what is and isn’t returnable in what sort of time frame. Look for sites that also offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee or Money-back guarantee. This shows the company is serious about customer service and that your needs shall be addressed if problems should arise.
    
3. Are They Like You? Reading the companies About Us section will give you an idea of what the company you are buying from believes in, values and aims to achieve. This is often overlooked as when company values match your own; your shopping experience tends to be more positive. Mission and vision statements offer an additional bonus showing the company has direction and is working towards fulfilling a purpose.
    
4. Make Contact. Email the store before you make a purchase, even if you are decided on the product and price. The timeliness and thoroughness of their response is a great indicator of how you should expect to be treated once the order is placed. If you receive no response, there should be no order. This tip can be a lifesaver to weed out phony web stores.
    
5. Bigger is Better. To minimize the risk of paying for, but not getting your products, look to an established store. These stores tend to have been online for at least few years, have hundreds of products to choose from and provide all the additional pieces outlined in this list.
   
   
6. International Risk. Unless you are 110% sure of the store, do not buy from an international nutrition store. Even though you may be able to get certain supplements at a slightly cheaper cost products of this nature are typically deemed to be higher risk when crossing the border and often orders are searched, damaged or even seized. All these scenarios you (the customer) are on the hook for.
    
7. Conduct a Small Test Transaction. Almost every store sells protein shaker cups or other items that are less than $10. Find a cost effective item you like and complete a full transaction. Upon order placement monitor how long to the arrival date and ensure you receive an email confirmation, printable invoice and tracking number at the time of purchase. If all goes well, this precautionary step will give you greater piece of mind and confidence to complete a larger transaction.
    
8. Security. This one is a little tougher if you don’t know what to look for. For starters ensure the health and wellness store has a section within their website describing their websites security. You want to see that the website values security and that it is important enough to discuss. Next to want to verify the websites security. There are two ways you will be able to tell a page is secure. First, on the credit card processing page look for “https” in the address bar as opposed to just “http” (the “s” stands for secure). Second, ensure a lock is on the bottom of the web browser (Double clicking the lock will pop-up the security validation details). Never put in your financial information if you do not see those two items.
    
9. Read the websites forum. Many health and wellness sites have a chat forum section where people freely provide feedback about the site and their shopping experiences. Leverage the other customers who have provided feedback in the websites forum and by reading the feedback you will have a general idea of past customer experiences and can use the information to contribute to your own buying decisions.
    
10. Shop around. There is a great selection of stores out there. Do not think that because many websites have the same products, that they are all equal. When you take into account the overall value provided (refer to the above nine tips), the right store for you might not be the one with the lowest price, but the one who educates your on the products while providing the best service levels.

Follow these ten tips when shopping for health and wellness products and more often than not, you will make the right decision in choosing the proper online health store.

To learn the 10 Reasons To Shop With Vitamart.ca CLICK HERE

To learn the store of how Vitamart.ca came to be and a little about the owner Mark Holowaychuk CLICK HERE