Swanson

Okay, so I wrote a review on here earlier this year and I wanted to come back and update it as promised. I originally had some minor mishaps trying to use their online site. A customer representative put the order through for me manually and was very polite about it. However, something also seemed to be going wrong with their credit card processor at the time, so I ended up having to send them a money order by mail which took extra time. That prolonged shipping time for me since I had to wait on them to recieve my money order. Overall, I found that rather inconvenient, especially since I needed those supplements here as soon as possible to alleviate certain aspects of my medical condition. Once the money order was recieved, shipping didn't take very long. BUT, certain things were on back order by the time they recieved my money order. In other words, somebody bought out some of the things I had reserved and they didn't save it for me since they hadn't recieved my payment yet. Understandable, but still slightly annoying. So I had to wait for about 3 items to come back in stock before they were mailed to me.

Those are all of the disadvantages and inconveniences involved with my order. However, I can also say that once I recieved their products I was more than happy with the results. I waited some time to see how effective they were compared to other brands I've used in the past, and I was definitely pleased. The price was very much worth the quality of the product sent. I will absolutely order from them again because of their competitive pricing and quality ratio... But I would definitely not recommend ordering from them if you're on a time restraint as their shipping and processing can be rather unpredictable. That's a pretty major downside for me, but the product and pricing is enough to keep me coming back.

I've been shopping at this website for several years now. They offer a great selection of products from vitamins to health foods. Sign up for their email alerts and begin receiving promotional offers - not like some sites, these offers are worth checking out. Customer service is excellent and sometimes, calling in to place your order will get you even more savings. There are reviews of products which are very helpful. The site is very user friendly and best of all, you can use PayPal for purchases. I highly recommend this site to you.

Every time either my family or I have ordered, it has been a good experience. Enough said. :)

I am based in Canada and order for delivery here.

Putting things in perspective to give honest assessment:

(1) The link below says, estimated delivery in 3-10 business days (Landmark Global Canadian delivery option). The company does not start counting these days until order has left their warehouse

Catch here is: Found them taking 2-5 days for shipments after the date of orders. So goods arrive past this period. For my recent order (Placed on February 16th, 2015), I am still waiting for the delivery. So far 12 business days have passed from the date of shipment (21 calender days)

Link (referred above):
https://www.swansonvitamins.com/help/international-information/top-searched-countries/canada.html

(2) This period of 3-10 business days includes time taken for customs. (As confirmed by CSR: Molly B. During online chat on March 4,2015 between 10:50am and 11:15am (EST)

In my case, customs took 2 business days for the clearance, so standard excuse of "delays in customs clearance does not apply.

(3) Personal experience on shipping: I have ordered over 15 parcels over the last 3 years (might have accounted for over $3000 purchase), in almost all cases after ordering, the shipment has happened after 2-5 business days. Usual response of CSR due to high volumes of orders, there is delay in shipment, we are sorry.

Guys, hire more people instead of standard excuses?
How does your apology solve any health problem?

(4)
Now, if ordered, and there is delay in shipment after ordering. The company policy is: Order can not be cancelled if the order processing has started So you get stuck!

Solution: Call up their CSR, who if kind enough can take you out of this mess and might cancel the order.

If it does not work, dispute the payment with credit card company and cancel the payment.

(5) If order has passed 3-10 business days limit, then as per the policy of the company, the customer must wait 15 business days to receive refunds/replace the package by sending another parcel. So in such cases, after adding there is further time-lag to receive the shipment. So minimum 20 business days (or maybe over 26 calender days if count 2 days of weekends). And remember that this is from the day of shipmen.
So hopefully in a month such orders might be received!

(6)
So what should a customer do if such goods are not received on time and have passed 3-10 business days from the date of shipment.

The solution I found, dispute the payment and cancel the payment from your credit card company; instead of dealing with their hopeless customer service.

(7)
Now, god forbid if you have to deal with their CSR.

If calling them, there is no record of that conversation. If chatting, (based on personal experience), if there is serious complaint and try to resolve that matter, less probability to receive the copy of that chat by email (their default option is to send the transcript of the chat by email), maybe the CSR does some magic!

(8) If email them, then absolute useless responses:
From my recent interaction:
My email (Dated March 3,2015 EST): "I have checked in your online tracking system of both service providers (which are Landmark and Canada Post), then called up Canada Post, the order status has not been updated for the last many days. Could you please investigate so I receive my order as it it urgent.

CSR response (responded on March 4,2015 by Courtney B., Email Specialist): We are sorry. You could check the tracking status at Canadapost.ca. We advise you to have patience.

Guys:
Did you read the email?
How the hell patience would solve the health problem?

Perhaps you should also go through the same problem to have the right experience.

(9)
Follow up email:
My email (March 6,2015): the order status has not been updated. These products are urgent due to my health issue, could you please investigate or reship the goods;

CSR response (March 7,2015 by Kellie B., Email Specialist): We are sorry. If you do not receive your goods by March 12,2015, then contact us for further assistance. Also, can you verify your address with us?

Now, I pray that you have similar health issues so that you learn to deal with the real issue rather than doing smart talk.

Verify your address: Guys, how many orders have you shipped so far and for how many years? You can not do this earlier?
Long-live smart talk!

So after pleading and waiting for 21 calender days, the order status has changed (so that gives everyone the solution that one should wait to be harassed by their CSR, and if you are alive by that time due to them being sorry/having patience, then perhaps order status change would be granted to you.

In my case, unfortunately it is a weekend, so might have to wait another 2-3 days!

(10) Found other options:
(a) eVitamins.com
(b) iHerb.com
(c) VitaminLife.com
(d) LuckyVitamin.com
(e) Vitacost.com

Canadians beware, 12-months refund option only applies to the orders within the US.

Pardon my grammar and spelling mistakes if any.

Very unprofessional people. Wasted my three days every time a new person tells me whole new different story. No one knows the policy of company they are placing orders but then they dnt know the packaging quality or when it will be shipped or how many can come. After making transcation it occures to them that asa new buyer one cannot make such big deal. They said things will be shipped next week and next day I had it in my hands. I mean what kind of unprofessionalism is this?

I have ordered from Swanson's for several years. At least once a month. Have always been happy until the last order. I order over $50 to get free shipping. It always arrives in about a week via UPS delivered to my door. The order I am expecting they shipped UPS Sure Post.
I do not have mail delivery. It is 2 hours round trip to the P. O. to pick it up. I have been round and round with customer service they will Not assure me that they will ship UPS to be
Delivered to my door. Oh they are sorry. I am looking for another company that delivers UPS

NEVER AGAIN! I joke wasted at least 4 hours of my own time trying to get this order straightened out between PayPal and swansons... Swansons claimed I did not pay for my order... Yet they shipped it and I recieved it? Make any sense? Nope! So they kept calling and emailing me asking me to pay for it... I contacted PayPal they said they recieved the money and even did a 3 way with me them and PayPal 2 times... The lady at PayPal gave up and just filed a dispute with them... 2 days later I get a lame email saying

Dear Benjamin,

Thank you for choosing Swanson Health Products.

Please be advised we have looked into the issue with the payment with pay pal. We have found the payment has been deposited into our account. We apologize greatly for the miscommunication on our end. No further action is needed for this order. We hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions please contact us.
Our quality, value and customer service have made Swanson Health Products a trusted source of nutritional supplements since 1969. To help us build this privileged relationship with you, we welcome your comments and suggestions, as it is our pleasure to serve you at any time.
Have a good day!

Amber S.
Customer Account Specialist

Wow thanks Swanson I feel like such a valued customer!

I was reviewing Ultimate Probiotic Formula on the Consumer Lab site and I did a price check at Swanson which showed $10.99 a bottle of 30 capsules and free shipping if you spend over $50.00. So I purchased 6 bottles for 65.94. When I confirmed the purchase the total came to 76.44. So from 10.99 a bottle it went to 12.74 a bottle. If I didn't notice the price change I would have made the purchase and would have gotten screwed. Once I contacted customer service, the rep wanted to honor the $10.99 a purchase but I refused cause I did not want to make any purchase from someone that tries to deceive me but when caught they will honor the price. I have learned my lesson a long time ago, once a thief always a thief... I will never go back to them. If they did this to me I'm almost certain they did it to others who may not have done their due diligence.

I should have looked online at all the reviews for this company before I placed an order.
Placed an order and then sort of forgot about it. Then I realized that it was taking an abnormally long time to get it. I used chat and then called about my order. They told me that my order had already been delivered (of which it had not).
I was also told that someone would be calling me to investigate my claim (of which no one did) and that I had to wait 10 days to either have my order reshipped or to cancel it.
I called back on the day I was told was the 10th day- only to be told I had to wait another 5 days.
So unacceptable!
Once they had "receipt" that the order had been delivered & I told them that it hadn't- why should I have to wait to do anything? They should have fixed the problem right there- either by resending the order or letting me cancel it.
Totally sketchy business... and it looks like I'm not the only one to think this.
And let it be known, I have never taken the time to write a good or bad review of any company. I just felt in this case, I needed to put my experience out there.

I've ordered a lot of vitamins from this site over the last few years and they've slowly been going downhill. They used to have free shipping offers quite often. Those disappeared & it seemed like they only sent offers if I left items in my cart for a couple of days. Lately those have gone away too. Recently I've noticed they send a coupon the day after I place an order. This would be nice if it was good for more than 3 days!
They do have good prices though. Maybe next time I need some vitamins I will order one item & wait for them to send the usual email coupon, then order the rest & use the coupon.
I have not had to make any returns, so haven't experienced the same problems as other reviewers.

This company is a total rip-off you order product they send you half the stuff and then try to dispute saying, they put the items in the customer service people are the worst ever there so rude, they have no knowledge of good customer service policies anyone planning to order before they will rip you off and then your out of money and vitamins, They always try to blame someone else for there lack of good business practise. If you planning on buying vitamins don't use them they will take your money then rip you off.

If this review was a couple of years ago I would have given them 5 stars easy. But not now. I will say that they have excellent prices and very good customer service. BUT... they also have dishonest advertising. When I placed an order with them I would get a pop up ad in a couple of days saying that there were still items in my cart. I couldn't see how this was possible since my cart is what I ordered but I clicked on the ad. Of course there were no items in my cart. It was just a ruse to get me back to their website. Why they think I'd like to be tricked into that for me to buy something right after I had already placed an order is beyond me. After about a week of telling me there were items in my cart I started to get regular ads from them ALL THE TIME. This was for sales of so much off and free shipping. But if you get fooled by this watch out. It just might be a sale IF you buy $60 worth of product. After being a loyal customer of Swansons for many years I will never, ever go back again. Reason #1 is that I don't do business with dishonest people. Reason #2 is that if I placed an order it would no doubt activate all of those ads again and I'd have to put up with that for a few weeks. So goodbye Swanson. It was nice while it lasted. (PS... I emailed them 3 times letting them know how I felt about these ads but they still kept coming)

I ordered from Swanson for over several years then switched to The Herb Finder. Well, I've been back to Swanson for over a year and have had great results. I used to order from The Herb Finder until they sold out and I got ripped off as they made their transition. The order that I had placed for over a $100 never arrived in spite of many calls to The Herb Finder. The Herb Finder told me so many lies to keep me hanging on then dropped my order. I did not receive the products or a refund. I'm glad to be ordering from Swanson again and appreciate their reliable service.

Wow! What an awesome company. I am a bit of a "vitamin junkie" but Swanson's rivals Nordstrom for customer service. They rock so hard! Their name brands are very affordable and stuff like Green Vibrance (that retails in a local store for over $40) is $19... or something crazy like that. Their boxes always arrive in immaculate condition and recently I was looking for a supplement they did not carry... so I called them and they took down all of the info on the package that I had and said they would inquire about carrying it! YAY! You can buy anything from Fish Oil to their own Tri-Fiber complex (my favorite fiber supplement, ever... very easy on the stomach... to lip balms, to organic peppermint oil... I don't even know what else to say about Sawanon's... they rock... And I am grateful to be a customer