Buying Supplements Online - Would Love Your Feedback

Store RepLaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 12:13
Last edited 07/05/2016 - 16:37 by 1 other user

My name's Jay and I'm the owner of Amino Z. We've had a lot of support from the OzBargain community and I'd like to personally thank everyone who has done so to date. And as much as I cringe when I see the complaints (every single time without fail), I would also like to thank those who have shared their bad experiences - we have learned a lot from this.

The primary reason for starting this topic is to get some community feedback. What exactly is it that you're looking for when you're buying supplements? How do we rate and how can we improve? Do you have any idea's that we could implement that would provide you with a better experience?

In starting this discussion, I do fully expect to receive some critical feedback on how we operate. I will be the first to admit that we make mistakes, but would love some candid feedback so we can improve our operations to service you better.

Thanks in advance!

  • Jay
Health & Beauty

Related Stores

Amino Z
Amino Z

Comments

  • GameChanger on 07/05/2016 - 12:23

    I used to be a regular buyer of supplement from Aminoz, but these days your prices are not that competitive without a coupon.

    Free shipping increasing from $75 to $99 made me look at competitor websites.

    Other than the price I have always received my orders and buy when prices are good.

    However, reading the stories of expiring products from other users isn't a great look!

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 12:28
      +2

      Thanks for the reply GameChanger. Awesome feedback.

      Yeah we did increase that free shipping tier and the main reason was because shipping is expensive and eats way into our margins. I understand that this is a deterrent to you as a customer.

      So a couple of key things here if you don't mind me probing:

      1. Price - you mentioned that we're not that competitive. Could I ask relative to which other companies, or just the industry in general? And is our price-beat tool a compelling reason to buy from us? Why or why not?

      2. Expiring products - just to clarify, is this solely based on other's feedback or from your own experience? We do heavily discount expiring products (a lot of these deals have been featured here on OzBargain), but that actually makes me question whether or not we are getting reputation for selling products that are due to expire at full price (which we don't do). Any thoughts on this from your point of view?

      Appreciate the feedback again.

      • Jay
      • GameChanger on 07/05/2016 - 12:47

        Thanks Jay for the reply and seeking feedback from the community.

        (1) Just the industry in general. I don't know often people use the price beat tool, but I'm one of those people who don't have the time to go the extra step. For me the price beat tool isn't compelling, if you had a permanent coupon for Ozbargain base that would be more compelling. Though I totally understand, the business side and this isn't possible or would make financial sense.

        (2)Solely based on others feedback, all the products I have bought from Aminoz had long expiry. It only stood out to me because people were receiving products when the listing didn't state short expiry and got me concerned. Other than this my personal experience with Aminoz has being great.

        Jay could you tell me about MetaMuscle Whey Research brand? I can't seem to find any information and it seems to be a private label of yours? You can private message me with this details, as this product has got me intrigued as its natural and the whey is sourced from NZ; and comparing to similar products is really cheap.

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 13:24

          Thanks again GameChanger.

          1. Okay great. When I coded in this price beat tool (took me weeks and many late nights) I did try to make it as simple as possible to do. This was actually following a very poor experience of my own with another retailer in a completely separate industry. They promised to beat any other price, but I had to call them up and spent 45 minutes getting it done to save a few dollars. Totally not worth it! Can I ask - is it the price beat tool itself (too many inputs), or just the thought of it taking too much time? I know that given my prior 45 minute saga with that other company, I would be hesitant to ever bother doing this again myself.

          2. Thanks for the clarity there. Definitely something for us to take on board.

          MetaMuscle Research is carried solely by us - you won't find it anywhere else and hence why the low price point. It's stevia sweetened, natural flavouring and is a WPI/WPC blend (WPI listed first). It is all natural and is the only protein I take personally. Happy to answer any other questions.

          • Jay
        • GameChanger on 07/05/2016 - 13:47

          @aminozcomau: (1) Just the thought of it taking time and being denied. I had a look at your tool and it seems to be efficient. I don't know about he stat side of things, do many people use the tool? I think many are assuming a long draw out process as that usually associated with price beat.

          MetaMuscle Research I really want to buy it but I'm worried at the price point its selling for that there is other added ingredients. I have no idea about the quality controls that in place for this product and from information point of view BulkNutrients is more open.

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 16:32

          @GameChanger: Yeah a lot of people use it. But as you can imagine, we have people putting through tubs of protein for $1 trying to cheat the system - those obviously all get held up :) But so long as everything is filled out correctly it's a pretty easy process.

          Appreciate the feedback on this. I will be taking this into consideration and brainstorming with the team on how this can be improved.

          Also thanks regarding MMR. I'm going to have to delve into BulkNutrients then and perhaps we can be more transparent with this product. At present there is very little information available on the website.

          • Jay
  • Maglia Nera on 07/05/2016 - 12:31

    Deals have typically only been on short-dated product gives the impression that you're only offering a market competitive price when you really need to (i.e. before you write off the stock)

    A good way to improve this is to offer ad-hoc deals on products that are long dated and are popular / high demand.

    Look at what most FMCG companies do - they offer specials on their perishable/dated products on a constant basis. Imagine if Coles or Woolworths only put Arnott's biscuits on special with 2 weeks shelf life?

    Pretty simple really IMHO

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 12:37

      Thanks Willy. Yeah fair point here and you know what, I haven't really considered it from this point of view. I personally make all the buying and sales decisions (SMB - we need to stretch our resources!) but it's funny how you get stuck into a particular way of thinking.

      We do offer deals on long-dated, but no where near as regularly as short-dated lines. Perhaps we need to reconsider this. Can I ask, do you value the short-dated offers at all - from your point of view and if it were your decision, would you abolish them altogether, or just place less emphasis on them?

      Cheers for the feedback.

      • Jay
      • Maglia Nera on 07/05/2016 - 15:42

        I'd probably only buy short-dated items if I know I'm going to consume them before/by the date. I do this on occasion with groceries - be it biscuits, pre-packaged veg's and the like. FWIW I only buy short-dated meat if I'm going to consume it the day I buy it (which maybe 2-3 days prior to its use by date). I'd only buy supplements that are short dated under the same pretence. E.g. I wouldn't buy 2kg's of protein powder if it only has 2 weeks left on it (as for me personally it would take close to a month to go through it).

        I think there's still a place for short dated deals, however, if that's the only type of deal that you're offering via OzBargain then the perception to the users here would be that you offer deals on those types of products - regardless if the rest of the range is competitively priced. I'd balance the deals here between short-dated & long-dated products. Perhaps alternate/rotate offering short-dated deals to OzBargain, your mailing list, in-store (if you have physical store) and eBay (again, if you have a eBay store)?

        Hope this helps…

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 16:35

          Great, thanks for that Willy. This is an excellent point and definitely worth taking on board. Appreciate you taking the time to assist here.

          • Jay
    • TiLLiCoMe on 08/05/2016 - 17:17

      If they offer specials on regular basis then wont people just wait for the specials to come instead of buying at full price?

  • Diji1 on 07/05/2016 - 15:44

    I think Bulknutrients is your biggest competition or at least in my eyes it is.

    The reasons I use them are consistent, non-changing low (but not necessarily lowest) priced consistent high quality product that always arrives in a timely fashion. They get everything right usually basically but I can't emphasise enough how much the unchanging price keeps me coming back because I know I'm getting a "good" price I don't look anywhere else unless something catches my eye.

    Because I buy a lot of regular supplements it takes me a long time to research for best prices. Having Bulknutrients means I can confidently order without doing that research and save a ton of time.

    So what I would like to see from your store is a line of protein, carbohydrates and complete RDI supplement that is high quality and always the same price and it arrives with a reliable shipper like AU Post.

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 07/05/2016 - 16:40

      Thanks Diji1. Great feedback. BN do have a slightly different model to us, but what you're recommending does make sense. I'll be taking a deeper look into this. Particularly appreciate your feedback regarding the consistent and non-changing pricing (something we do quite the opposite on due to our different model).

      • Jay
  • EdAus on 08/05/2016 - 09:51

    As a comparison… I buy from iHerb.com.
    Good prices, reasonable shipping from USA.

    no relationship to iherb###.

    That may be your starting comparison point.
    My last lot of products added up to$300 locally. Iherb $95 plus shipping.

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 09/05/2016 - 07:33

      Thanks EdAus, appreciate the feedback here.

      This is one reason why we did introduce the world-wide price beat. Were you aware of this at all and is this something you would use?

      If you're buying the same products then we can compete, but the USA does stock a number of products that we cannot get locally. Can I ask what types of products you order?

      Thanks EdAus.

      • Jay
  • kevynz on 08/05/2016 - 23:13

    I'd have to agree with some of the above posts, Jay. I used to be a regular at Amino Z until I found out about Bulk Nutrients. Although your increase in free shipping didn't phase me (I typically spend over $99 in one transaction anyway), Bulk Nutrients are just that bit more competitive.

    However with that said, it is not to say that I have completely cut loose from your company. I still find myself browsing on Amino from time to time and whenever I recieve an email with a 20% coupon or so, I will more often than not purchase from your site over BN's. I think a huge advantage of your site is its wealth of products, unique promotions (e.g. free creatine/ ON apparel with purchases) and insanely fast shipping.

    What I could possibly recommend is perhaps providing consumers with a 20% coupon every 3-4 months or so if your margin can hold it. I may not speak for the entire consumer fanbase, but I think many customers purchase supplements in bulk to last them for the next couple of months.

    All in all, whenever I find Amino Z to be cheaper, I will always choose it over BN, but its difficult if I don't have a coupon/site discount. Nonetheless, cheers for the great business!

    *On a sidenote, what happened to the checkout freebies!? :P

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 09/05/2016 - 07:48

      Great feedback kevynz, thanks for providing such detail here.

      Obviously BN provide you with a different type of value and I do like their business model. While I am greatly appreciative of the support for Amino Z, I can absolutely see your point here. This is definitely something I'm going to be having a good think about to try and figure out a way that we can provide better value to you.

      Personally I wish we could do 20% all the time (you save money and we get business!), but there's a reason why we don't :) But I like your suggestion of structuring our promotions in a manner that is sustainable.

      Checkout freebies - they were taken down when we re-introduced the rewards points. I'm not sure how long you've been with us, but a long time ago we did have a rewards points program (not as good an offer as the current one though). We abolished it and instead offered the freebies and a few other things. But after taking on board a wealth of feedback from our emails and surveys, we made the decision to revert back to the loyalty programme (but offering a much more aggressive incentive of up to 10% back in rewards points). Overall this has been really well received and at the end of the day, you now have the flexibility to use those loyalty points to pay for the dollar deals (similar to the freebies), or any standard item instead.

      Of course happy to get any feedback on this too, I'm all ears :)

      • Jay
      • kevynz on 10/05/2016 - 00:14

        No problem at all, thanks for the reply Jay!

        I definately understand your viewpoint on the coupons and discounts, and I will surely have to check out the rewards points in further detail next time I make a purchase.

        I hope everything goes well on your business end and as long as there are some deals or promotions going on from time to time, you can be rest assured that you won't see the last of me, or the mates that I tell about your site :)

        Cheers again,
        Kevin

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 10/05/2016 - 06:55

          Thanks kevynz, I greatly appreciate the support and thanks once again for taking the time to provide this feedback. It's been really helpful.

          • Jay
  • shapers on 25/05/2016 - 14:35

    Just a bit of feedback from recent orders from you guys:
    Both orders i placed i put the address as a parcel collect. For some reason both times you guys sent it by a courier service and they werent able to give it to the post office so they had to return it to sender. Especially annoying for short dated orders as you dont want to lose any time with them.
    Another thing i bought 12 packets of the short dated musclepharm combat (Said they were from june-sept). I was expecting to receive a mix of late/early expiry ones but ended up getting all of them with expirys of next month which was pretty annoying.

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/05/2016 - 07:58

      Hi Shapers,

      Thank you for your feedback and I am very sorry for the problem that you encountered with the order.

      If you could please provide me your name and order number via email so that we can look into this and rectify the situation.

      You can reach us via email at [email protected] or via phone at 1300 264 669.

      Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

      Kind regards,
      Ailene

  • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 25/05/2016 - 18:14

    Thanks Shapers.

    Actually the issue about Parcel Collect came across my desk earlier in the week and was subsequently fixed. Please accept my apologies for this, this was a system issue.

    If you're unhappy with the MP Combat we can arrange to have it sent back (don't forget we have the guarantee and will happily refund you for anything you don't want - we'll also pay the return shipping). We do advertise the range of expiry dates but cannot guarantee any specific date is sent out. Perhaps we can look at being a bit more transparent on this by separating our listings, so thank you for your feedback on this one and I'll take this to the team.

    I'll forward this over to customer service so they can try to make good on these unnecessary delays. Very sorry for the poor experience you've had with us.

    • Jay
    • shapers on 27/05/2016 - 08:08

      Hey, appreciate the reply.
      Yeah everything seemed to have been sorted out pretty fast which is good :)
      On a positive note: The live chat feature is great, once I saw the tracking info and realised it was being sent by courier again I spoke to them and they sorted it straight away before anything was sent out.
      Also love the price beat tool you have

      • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/05/2016 - 16:39

        Fantastic. Thanks for the update Shapers and for taking the time to share this feedback.

        Jay

  • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/05/2016 - 16:39

    Fantastic. Thanks for the update Shapers and for taking the time to share this feedback.

    • Jay
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