Selling Vitamins.......Anyone????

You mean you want to be more than just an affiliate for a pharmacy/store (that sells those), right?

A long time ago I sold the greatest vitamin in the world by a man named Don Lapre

You could try Markethealth.com as an affiliate I think they have weight loss pills and I'm not sure but they might also have sports related pills.

Try Joe Bucks or The Vitamin Shoppe. Apparently they are good.

Good luck.

If you've got some upfront money to invest, send me a PM for a fully automated turnkey website that will handle all the ordering and shipping for you.

Yes, I have been in the vitamin biz, but my supplier was chronically late and product was substandard. Therefore I will not recommend him. The problem is you need massive amount of money to create a formulation, buy the vitamins, packaging, etc. Then comes the hard part, selling them.

Most labs have minimum orders that will set you back approx $50,000 for one formulation, so you ask if you can use an existing formulation and slap your own private label on it.

It is a nasty biz, better to go with face cream as the regulations are less stringent.

I have done quite a bit of drop shipping in the past and of all the suppliers and everything I have always found best results using World Wide Brands. For both selling on my site and selling on ebay. I would recommend checking them out.

Let me know if I can help in any other way.

Ryan

Don't forget yer tinfoil.

Julian, I PROUDLY where it every day, lol :p!

(Yes, they are comin' to get me...).

You need to checkout Commission Junction. If you join then go to "Pop Shops" for product data feeds. Both work GREAT together. Commission Junction offer a good variety of vitamin companies and body builder suppliers. It costs nothing to join Commission Junction, and Pop Shops Data Feed has several options for membership to their services, starting at $5.99 mo.

I've thought about this as well, I found that making your own formulation with a min order will set you back about 10-12k. Not including in you want them to warehouse the product and drop ship for you. I know of wholesale companies, however, you must have a business formed Ie; LLC with a company tax id # in order to conduct business with them..

I know of another company that charges about 1500.00 startup and 100 per month service fee for a fully build online store with all of the most popular brands.

I could create some very nice formula's, I've chatted quite abit with Patrick Arnold (Owns Ergopharm supplement company, created "the clear" think barry bonds and pioneered the andro/1AD suppelments in the late 90's)

A bit of advice if you are to create something.

1. Make sure it works, run double blind tests to confirm this.
2. Do not just clone someone elses product, I would suggest improving someone elses product instead.
3. Make sure you have a legit business formed and hire an attourney.
4. Remember that what ever product you create there probably is already 100 different versions on the market, with your's being an unknown brand. Make your product unique and one that standsout and give out trial samples. Could also round up free reps on Bodybuilding.com to help sell and push your product..

Good luck!

I use markethealth.com for ads on my bodybuilding site.

Get your hands on "The 12 Month Millionaire". It's by Vincent James, it will teach you everything you need to know about this.

He sold pills though direct mail. Was doing crazy numbers! He lays everything out for you. It's a very good read.

PM me for the link to the site I use. Fully branded, turn key. I have several shops through them and will share one with you.

Since I use my own host company and have a domain name there was 0 fee. But if you don't there is a tiny fee. Very affordable. It was $10 I think it may have gone up a little.

Great company!

Doesn't matter how much the manufacturing costs are if you can not create brand awareness for your product.

Seriously how are you going to outcompete the dozens of brands already on the market. And if you want to make money you'll need some kind of authority to back up your claims. Not some Internet Made Up Testimonials.

If you want to sell vitamins create a community that would embrace the idea then sell affiliate products.

Have you done any research at all as to what vitamins are on the market?

im trying to break the skin care, diet, supplement world. its going to be competitive

Building the brand is definitely the toughest part. Finding a good core of top publishers and earning their loyalty by developing relationship and making it known that they are getting taken care of above everyone else is ideal. If their volume can't sustain you then the eaiser route is the networks, just watch out for the fraud factor here as you will lose touch with the pubs.

wow...cant beleive my thread from over a month ago popped back up. But to answer most peoples questions...... yes i have looked into manufacturing companies. just gotta go to thomas.net i beleive is the website. lots of companies that will private label a product for you for cheaper then what some of you have mentioned. But the big question that was brought up is creating brand awareness.
I have been into bodybuilding for around 15 years and would love to break into that part of the supp. industry but that would be to hard. these days you would have to have alot of money or make a name for yourself in the industry as a pro bodybuilder or a well known trainer.
My thoughts and vision was to kinda go around the outside of those type of supps. for example the cognition market. I dont know how many of you have read The Four Hour Work Week by timothy ferris(not sure if name is spelled right) but all he did was create one product and he still to this day dominates that product.
But i feel my best approach now would be to create several page website, a home page, about us page, my blog page where i would put all my articles, a product review page for physical and downloadable aff. products and maybe even a private label vitamin storefront making comission off products sold. oh yea and also have a forum. Drive as much traffic as i can and do everything possible to get people to sign up for my newsletter. Also have refer a friend and social bookmark buttons on every page.
Build my list as much as i can and make sure people are coming back to the site, build trust with people and when the time is right launch my first product and send a broadcast email asking people to buy the product for a few dollars(whatever will cover the cost for shipping and product manufacturing) in exchange for testimonials.
Then do it again, and again if it works!!!!

I use and really like dr. dharma sing khalsa's stuff he has an affiliate program and is really a very well known person. I personally know him and use his stuff.

Robert

For an explanation of Codex Alimentarius you can check out this video. It is about proposed global restrictions on most vitamins and supplements.

Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs

What's with all of this "brand awarenss" talk?!

Unless you guys have TONS of money to blow, forget brand awareness. Focus on direct marketing principles that have been working for ages. If your product sells and people like it, that will create brand awareness.

You don't have the marketing budget of Coke, McDonalds, etc., so don't even bother with brand awareness. All you should care about is selling the product for a profit. ROI and customers LTV is what you need to concern yourself with. Not brand awareness.

Direct Marketing 101.

As suggested above, you can private label and break into the biz for a relatively low cost, but you have to have the traffic to make any decent money. You can buy wholesale for between $12-20 bottle ( for most of the lifestyle type products) and add a couple of bucks per order for dropshipping, but one of the biggest problems for the little guy is to get a decent merchant account that won't keep your money for a long period.

It's usually just easier to sign up as an affiliate for a company and try your hand at selling before moving into the wholesale/dropship game.

metagenics will PL or supply you your own store.... but you have to a doctor i think, (or know one)

I have looked into it heavily in Canada, yet to find a good dropshipper? If you get any info on the canadian market please contact me. Thanks