41 replies to this topic

[mrak1979]

Does anybody know anything about his company and brand? Are their products high quality? I know they're very inexpensive.

[curious_sle]

well, i don't like them because they have a tendency to advertise stuff like "100mg x, 60 caps" then in the mandatory supplement facts you see "serving size 2 caps daily2 resulting in the "100mg" ie. to me they use missleading information at least part of the time.

Qualitywise i don't know...

[dillon]

Vitacost is the marketing arm of NSI.

Vitacost is a great place to buy many different brands of supplements, at prices similar to IHERB.COM.

I generally go to IHERB first, as shipping at IHERB is free if you buy over $60 worth of products.

If IHERB doesn't carry something, my next stop is Vitacost. Vitacost charges a reasonable $4.99 shipping for all size orders.

Both IHERB and VITACOST tend to ship their orders out immediately. Vitacost is located in Florida, and IHERB in Southern California, so if you're located closer to one than the other, you'll tend to receive your order faster from the company located closest to you.

HOWEVER... I only buy name brand supplements (GMP companies that I know and trust, like Jarrow, Country Life, Nature's Way, etc) from VITACOST, as opposed to their own NSI brand.

NSI brand items MAY be fine, but there's no way for me to know this. They do NOT follow GMP practices (I called and asked, after not seeing it listed on their website.) NSI products are made in Asia (China, if I recall). This is obviously a red-flag, and I'd prefer to buy from manufacturer's that I know and trust.

[tintinet]

NSI appears to be reputable, but, IME, Vitacost heavily promotes their own, rather expensive NSI label supplements rather than possibly superior value supplements produced by more widely known and distributed supplement companies such as Country Life, NOW, etc.

Via Fatwallet.com, one can get a substantial rebate @ Vitacost (6%); but one can often find equal or superior value/$ from iherb.com (5%-10% discounts for various qualifications and free shipping on larger orders) or Vitaglo.com (free shipping; often very low pricing) or (possibly more controversially) via purchasing bulk via vendors such as BAC.com, Bulknutrition.com, etc.

[zoolander]

I use to order from vitacost but they kept changing their shipping policies. One month they would ship to Australia and then the next they wouldn't. When I questioned this via email their customer service department were rude and obviously did not care.

I'm suspicious about their marketing. They market themselves as vitacost selling NSI supplements when they are really NSI selling their own supplements as well as others. On top of this, their shipping costs are ridiculius. They obviously profit from shipping internationally.

[ageless]

I use to order from vitacost but they kept changing their shipping policies. One month they would ship to Australia and then the next they wouldn't. When I questioned this via email their customer service department were rude and obviously did not care.

I'm suspicious about their marketing. They market themselves as vitacost selling NSI supplements when they are really NSI selling their own supplements as well as others. On top of this, their shipping costs are ridiculius. They obviously profit from shipping internationally.

I have a similar problem being from Canada and have a love/hate relationship with them... I've continually run into problems ordering from them and after asking a zillion times for a catalogue, still haven't recieved one. I really like many of their products and think they're well thought out, but my problems have kept me from supporting them further. From my experience their products seem very high quality and at a great price, supposedly they do independent testing I thought, but who knows.

[Shepard]

I'm comfortable using NSI products that are based around the patents of other companies. For basic generic substances, I would probably go with Now if you're worried about it.

[niner]

I just bought a couple things from vitacost today. At the end of my transaction, there was a thing that said "click here to get $10 for free" or something to that effect. In the fine print it said you were signing up for a "club" or something and they would bill your credit card fifteen bucks a month. I thought that was incredibly slimy. It would have been really easy to miss the fine print. It figures they are from Florida, the world capital for scams.

[Shepard]

In the fine print it said you were signing up for a "club" or something and they would bill your credit card fifteen bucks a month.  I thought that was incredibly slimy.  It would have been really easy to miss the fine print.

I fail to be offended by this. Tons of companies do things like this.

[steelheader]

Compare Doctor's Best's 100 mg cap of GeraNova's Biohanced Na-Rala on Iherb with NSI's 100mg cap of the same product on Vitacost. At first glance it looks like NSI Na-Rala 100 mg caps on Vitacost are clearly the better deal.

But Doctor's Best's 100 mg cap contains 100 mg of R-ALA, in the form of 143 mg of Na-Rala.

While it is not made at all clear, a careful inspection of the ingredients list of NSI's 100 mg cap on Vitacost indicates that it contains 100 mg of Na-Rala, which would only yield around 70 mg of R-ALA.

[shifter]

Hmm, I was about to buy several NSI things from vitacost (they 'seemed' like pretty good deals) and was pretty peeved after spending ages browsing the site and then going to the checkout that they didn't end up shipping to Australia. Went and ordered heaps more things on iherb and pretty glad I did now!

[tintinet]

Ya. NSI/Vitacost strategies appear geared toward subtle sales deception, although they are certainly not alone in this practice.

[ajnast4r]

i personally would rather pay a few bucks more for brands like now & jarrow, which we KNOW are good quality companies with good practices... saving a few bucks and sacrificing quality is pointless

[marting]

Hey thanks for all the good comments and links to other companies - I was considering buying some products from them such as their reservatrol product which seems like a good deal in terms of price and potency - but I think I will pass on that for now

Br

Martin

[pycnogenol]

I personally would rather pay a few bucks more for brands like now & jarrow, which we KNOW
are good quality companies with good practices... saving a few bucks and  sacrificing quality is pointless.

Exactly. Besides, Vitacost does not allow me to use my credit union issued Visa CC yet iHerb does. Go figure.

[niner]

Exactly. Besides, Vitacost does not allow me to use my credit union issued Visa CC yet iHerb does. Go figure.

That's funny. I just used my Visa Check Card at Vitacost the other day. It was issued through a credit union too, although the issuer should not matter. If you use them as a debit card, they are subject to whatever daily withdrawal limit you've set. If the merchant is not asking for a PIN, then they are running it as a credit card. I've never had an online seller ask for a PIN.

[brainengineer]

Well Im by no means an expert, but I use NSI quite a lot. The prices are very good for brands other than NSI and the NSI house brand is often very very well priced in comparison.

I do still look for the best value in items and balance that off against standard formulations etc. For example, Ive decided not to use herbs from NSI because Im just not convinced of the formulations vs other very well regarded firms. But for other things like the "basics" of magnesium, melatonin, vitamin c, fish oil, etc I feel very comfortable with NSI.

I do wish though that there products were reviewed by consumerlab but alas they dont participate.

--
BrainEngineer

[tintinet]

ConsumerLab is a bit of a confusing animal, IMO. Unlike Consumer Union (Consumer Reports' parent organization), CL.com is a for profit entity that accepts supplement company advertising on its website and issues "Certification" to companies with products that pass CL.com testing.

These qualities raise the potential for conflict of interest, thus, CL.com ought, IMO, be
very careful to ensure undeserved consideration doesn't become a profitable commodity and impair their impartiality.

[chrisp2]

I wonder if the reason why CL takes so long (on Resveratrol for instance)...

Is because when one of their member companies fails a test, they get enough time to produce and ship new batches, and for CL to (hopefully) purchase an updated lot from the retail channel?

I emailed them recently before joining to see when they'd have the RESV report out. I received no response, so I didn't join.

[tintinet]

They did respond to my query regarding the resveratrol report, but declined to reveal any more specific information (sometime this Spring, IIRC) regarding the date they'd issue the report.

[chrisp2]

I'm kind of suspect of their process because ResV is so "hot" right now...

Yet it is taking months for them to do their testing?

I don't understand why it would take so long to send the samples out for HPLC testing, and compile a report... Other than giving their member companies ample time to respond / fix issues.

(Which if they truly do fix them, then fine - CL has done a service by not only detecting problems but getting them resolved so that we have greater choice in the marketplace)

[tintinet]

Agree: it does seem to be taking a while, and I'm not that patient. I'm a bit surprised there aren't more organizations testing and reporting upon popular supplements in a widely accessible manner. Also, the supplements CL.com test are often not ones I find the most accessible and cost effective, but often seem a bit random, scattered, and certainly not inclusive of many popular brand products. I wish they'd update their reports regularly with additionally tested products in hot categories, at least.

[ageless]

So most people feel iherb is a good place to order from?

[ageless]

I wish iherb sold AOR.

[tintinet]

I frequently order from iHerb.com. Great service- discounts as well, and free shipping with larger orders. Another low cost provider, sometimes with lower pricing: Vitaglo.com. The latter, although almost always fast and accurate, can be difficult to contact regarding any issues with orders. This problem may be largely historical, as the most recent issue I had with them (I've ordered from them uncountable times) was quickly and easily resolved. Other good sites IMO include Nutraplanet, Netrition, BulkNutrition/1Fast400.com/whatever, and BAC.com.

[chrisp2]

I wish iherb sold AOR.

I second that.

[ageless]

I frequently order from iHerb.com. Great service- discounts as well, and free shipping with larger orders.  Another low cost provider, sometimes with lower pricing: Vitaglo.com.  The latter, although almost always fast and accurate, can be difficult to contact regarding any issues with orders.  This problem may be largely historical, as the  most recent issue I had with them (I've ordered from them uncountable times) was quickly and easily resolved.  Other good sites IMO include Nutraplanet, Netrition, BulkNutrition/1Fast400.com/whatever, and BAC.com.

Thanks tintinet!

[stephen_b]

One thing I like about Vitacost is that they update their formulations regularly. From a recent newsletter:

Because science is always changing, we're always changing and improving our products. We're currently on the tenth version of the foundational Synergy Multi-Vitamin, first launched in 1995 and NSI®'s first product.

How common is it for a multivitamin manufacturer to change their product based on new research? My assumption (feel free to provide counterexamples) is that they would rather not out of fear of losing customers who have become accustomed to their product.

Stephen

[curious_sle]

iHerb and relentlessimprovement are my two favs. They have different fortes, i like the nootropics and of course the AOR stuff over at relentless, plus superb service of course :-)

[david ellis]

Let's see what happens. I wrote reviews and notified management about 3 problems I had with NSI. My B-100 formula has (according to the label) 100 mgs of biotin. That's 33,340% of the daily requirement. I don't know whether its a typo (maybe mcgs instead of mgs) or the pill really has 100 mgs. But from reading the way Custom Capsule labels are printed/calculated by computer control, the product could really have 100 mgs of biotin.

I also was tricked by their use of serving size on the front label. I thought I bought 200 1800 mg pills of l-arginine. And got 100 1,800 mg servings. So I wrote what I thought.
,
And I reviewed the scam using the weight of the molecule (Na-R-ALA) instead of the active ingredient weight. An apparent 100 mg serving was actually only a 70 mg serving of R-ALA.

I posted on-line reviews giving the three products one star. And I had the option to tell NSI management, so I did. The on-line reviews have a normal 72 hour approval period. I expect with the holiday weekend it will take more than 72 hours to reply, and maybe even publish my reviews. [:o] I am suspicious about the high ratings on the NSI site.

I got a quality questionaire email after my order a few weeks ago. I notified NSI then about the B100 and arginine, but have never received a reply. The longer I waited the more steamed I got, so a little escalation. But no more escalation, I have better things to do. I did like buying other folk's products from them, but now I don't know.