How to evaluate a supplier

This industry has a low barrier to entry and a high rate of disappearance. These eight checks take about fifteen minutes and will tell you more than any amount of reading reviews. Run them on us too — we wrote this expecting you to.

The eight checks

1. Can you get a lot-specific COA before you pay? Not a sample certificate. Not "we test everything." The document for the batch they would ship you, on request, before money changes hands. If the answer is no, stop here — nothing further on this list matters. How to read one.
2. Is there a real address and a real way to reach a person? A physical address, an email that gets answered, ideally a phone number. Send a question before you order and see what comes back. How a supplier handles a pre-sale question is exactly how they will handle a problem.
3. How old is the domain? A public WHOIS lookup takes seconds. A site registered eleven weeks ago selling a full catalogue with deep discounts is a pattern, and it is a pattern that ends with an inbox nobody reads.
4. What payment methods are accepted? Card payment carries chargeback rights. Irreversible methods do not. A seller who accepts only irreversible payment has removed your recourse — that may not be malice, but the effect on you is the same either way.
5. Where does it ship from, and how is it stored? Ask both. Transit time is part of storage: two weeks in an unmarked package through customs is two weeks in uncontrolled conditions. A supplier who cannot answer this in a sentence has not thought about it, which is its own answer.
6. Is there a returns or replacement policy in writing? Any policy beats no policy. A strict written policy is a company planning to still be here next year. Silence is a company that has not considered the question, or has and would rather you did not ask.
7. Does the pricing make sense? Real material has a real floor cost. A price far under the market is not a bargain — it is information. Something in that chain has been skipped, and it is usually testing.
8. What happens when you ask what it does? This is the most revealing question on the list. A supplier who answers with outcomes, dosing, protocols, or a personal recommendation has told you they will say whatever closes the sale. A supplier who declines and redirects you to documentation is showing you the limit of what they are willing to assert — and a company that holds a line where it costs them a sale is a company that holds lines elsewhere too.

Five questions to send before a first order

Copy these. Send them to any supplier, including us. The speed and specificity of the reply is the test as much as the content.

What good looks like

A note on reviews and recommendations

Be careful with testimonials, forum recommendations and influencer posts, wherever you find them — including ones that appear to praise us. Endorsements are frequently paid, frequently undisclosed, and increasingly generated outright. The US Federal Trade Commission has rules covering exactly this, which exist because the problem is widespread enough to need them.

Documentation is checkable. Enthusiasm is not. Weight them accordingly.