Swanson

Minimum no shipping charge is too high. Delivery of products always a few days over what's promised.

I've used Swanson a few times but this last time was a big disappointment. Delivery took 1 month and not the 2-5 business days promised, tracking did not provide much information and customer support was non-existant. Delivery cost me nearly $40 so I think I am entitled to complain about such poor service.
It's such a shame as Swanson used to be really good.

I purchased many items from Swanson for 6 years. I finally stopped last September. All of a sudden they started this fuel surcharge. $1.99. Please. First they tell you you have free shipping, then if your order goes over 1 pound, they charge this ridiculous fuel surcharge fee. (this is what I was told by the customer service rep).

You could purchase $200 worth of vitamins, which would certainly weigh over 1 pound and you could get hit with the fuel surcharge fee. It's petty and a stupid business practice.

I won't order from them again until this dumb fee is revoked

I'm a long time customer going on 5-years now and have always purchased large quantities to cover my needs for several months. I take as today, 21 different supplements and vitamins; some are once a day, twice a day, and then there are the three per day. I have also always enjoyed their regular discounting and of course, "Free Shipping on orders over $50!" However, that is no longer true as they have imposed what they're calling a shipping surcharge? My first up-charge was on an order over $250 and I called and was told due to the size of my package, they had to charge me $16 for it due to carrier up-charge. So, I reduced the next order to just over $50 and got charge again, a $1.99 up-charge. This is not free shipping! My question them was, "How can you advertise Free Shipping if you're going to charge anything, regardless of how you state it, a shipping fee?" I'm very disappointed that they're doing this and may begin seeking my needs elsewhere? There are many other reputable sources! Bluebonnet, Jarrow, etc.

I've been shopping on swansonvitamins for years now and haven't had any problems. Today however, I go on to their site and they say I'll get 20% off AND free shipping if I sign up with their text alerts, so since that sounded good, I signed up for their text alerts because I was mainly excited for the free shipping. Once I put things in my basket, it says I'll get free shipping IF I pay over $100. That was not the original deal. It said 20% off and free shipping. The need to pay over $100 was not mentioned until after I signed up with their texts. I didn't think swansons would need to stoop low like that.

EDIT: They sent me a replacement

Bought a four month supply of a vitamin, third bottle's contents were covered in a brown powder. Turns out the container was cracked and the contents are covered in tiny shards of glass. Being that I bought four months worth and I didn't open the bottles until needed all customer service told me was it's past the 30 day refund period, and that I should just throw away the damaged item...

On the first of this month I noticed I was running short of a supplement known as 'Passion Flower', an herb that regulates an overactive parasympathetic nervous system and permits uninterrupted night time sleep. I ordered the product from Swanson, most widely recognized in frozen foods from back in the day and I got excellent results the first time using this product. However, I noticed they shorted me on the number of pills in all the bottles. How do I know? Well, the instructions say to take 2 to 4 pills daily. Each bottle contains 60 tablets, a 1000 mg dosage per pill and I take two per day but at the end of the month I had one pill NOT two remaining.

Everything is pretty much done electronically these days so I sent in a Passion Flower order which was issued June 3rd with a promise from Swanson to notify me when the item shipped. But to my surprise I received an email on June 3rd asking me to rate a phone call from Katie at Swanson that I never received! Amazing how the employees could solicit me for a telephone review WITH OUTgiving me my order number and ship information.

As we move into the global arena of business, service goes out the window. Although Swanson has a good product their service gets progressively worse each order. I had to call Swanson yesterday to find out what happened to my order since almost a week had elapsed and there was no shipping information. The guy I talked to regarding my order could barely speak English. If you have ever wondered what happened to all those illegal's coming across the southern border, rest easy because they are alive and well at companies like Swanson. It's why you can't get a job because the company can hire a dozen or more people for what they would have to pay you but I digress. I told the representative that I had received no confirmation documents from the purchase and that I didn't even have the order number. The representative spent some time looking up my records eventually finding my order number. I asked him if I could have these documents retransmitted to me (assuming they were sent in the first place) via email. He agreed and I was subsequently told that my order would be delivered by 9:00 PM Wednesday evening.(June 8)

My order arrived sometime in the afternoon of June 8, much earlier than the rep quoted. However, I NEVER received any of the documents that I equested, i. E. my order number, shipping info, and tracking, etc during our conversation. The only proof of purchase I had was a copy of my debit card statement. What if I had had to go out of town on business and I might of asked a friend to collect the order from my box? How could he know when to expect it?

I have had excellent results using Swanson products but their poor customer support is a turnoff and I will buy my health supplements elsewhere in the future..

Chose several things and half the items I wished to order could not be shipped to California. I'm confused about that as I think I'm able to order the same things from other places with no problem. I looked at the 'restricted' list of items that can't be shipped to California and it appears to be most of their stock, so unfortunately I don't think I can do business with them regularly. I realized that this is some weird California thing and not Swanson with Prop 65, another way California kills business in the state.

When you place a $100 order, you expect quick shipping, even if, because of the size of the order you placed qualified you for 'free' shipping. It can be two weeks until you get your order. Also, if you 'try' to order by Paypal, and one of the items in your order is out of stock, you will be asked to use a credit card instead. My fix to this, is to delete the out of stock item from your list and order via Paypal. Credit card orders, from my last experiences, get no immediate email acknowledgement to the buyer that you placed your order. Also, I have not received any shipping notification with my last two or three orders placed via credit card. Ordering with Paypal, you get an almost immediate email notification of your 'placed' order. Products that Swanson Vitamins provides, in general, I am most pleased with.

I ordered some vitamins it did take them 4 or 5 days to ship the order out. Then it took 7 days to receive my order. But my order did show up and it was what I ordered. I did get a discount on shipping along with a decent price on the vitamins. Only really annoying thing was that they started to constantly email me ads and coupons which became annoying really fast.

Every time I try to check out over about 2 years now so before Covid it just goes into the circle of death routine and the checkout never proceeds. I've tried switching to PayPal and it still happens. GRRRR. No doubt Swansons has lost a lot of my business as I can't be the only one. At first they told me this was happening to a lot of people and they were working hard to fix it. Last time they said no it's my older computer and software choice of Firefox. I switched to 2 other browers and nope. I forwarded their email special to my brandnew Lenova Window 10 computer and yes I was able to check out but they reduced the deal to nil. That makes no sense since both computers are identified by same e-address and so my account and password is identical too. And the add was the very add they sent me? So I make fewer and fewer buys on Swanson and wonder how many other folk have the same issue. I can get my order through but I have to call them and go through all of that. I find it annoying to say the least. I have switched a number of my products to Amazon including some Swanson's brands though a bit more on Amazon it's just so much less hassle and less worry as no need to give numbers over the phone etc. Sure enough tonight once again no go. This is before I even get a chance to put in the CC or use a registered on site version. Swanson so needs to get their ACT together and fix this if they want everyones business. Not everyone wants and many can't afford the newest computers and tablets and cellphones out there. We live in rural area where 78% of the county is a dead zone. It's a huge county in NW MT and between most major towns it's dead zone so not very many folk have adapted to cell phone use or smart phones. Bottom line Swanson if you read this review PLEASE FIX this. In our tech oriented world there is no excuse from your IT department not to resolve or patch things on your end. If I find time tomorrow and the special is still good not expired I will try to find a time to call. Otherwise another lost order.

I ordered regularly from them by phone and by mail between 2002 and 2012, and the service and products were excellent, perfect. During those 10 years they never made a single error, in my case. Recently I finally ordered again, this time by mail, and the service was great, but I'm giving them only 3 stars because of all these negative reviews. I'm afraid to order from them again. Their website sucks too. Today I tried repeatedly to sign into my account created in 2012 but never could. I used the same email address that they still have from 2012, and today I created 2 new passwords. Still no luck. Live Chat was useless as well. The agent couldn't help me one iota. So much for SwansonVitamins.

I tried to let them know both times - can't find a way to talk to the main office to let them know.
I would up my stars if they fix the security on their website - or I could talk to someone who knows about the web site.

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.

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.