[shailene]

Opprinnelig lagt inn av wine, her.

iHerb are not your friends, and they are not offering competitive prices to be nice. They are big businessmen with lots of money to invest, and their only interest is profit.

They are able to be competitive because they buy everything in bulk. Due to volume they can send with bulk corporate rates that are not even available in Norway. They also avoid paying VAT and customs tax.

If your package gets caught in customs it will cost you heavily - you will pay the VAT directly; they will still get paid anyway.

The effect? Small Norwegian health shops, run by people who care about what they sell and know what they are talking about, can't compete. They often fail and close down. American big corporate business wins, small Norwegian shop owners lose.

And when the small Norwegian health foods have disappeared, who will you shop from then? You will only have iHerb left to deliver. And when they have a monopoly, what will happen to their prices then? And what will be your options - to wait for new small serious health food shops to rise from the grave?

Purchasing from iHerb is short sighted.

/wine

I see hairdressers and skin therapists using the same arguments, they complain about shops having to close down because people are buying products online rather than from the shops. I'm not sure I believe prices in general on the "niche" market really are as low as they can be while still making a profit, but this is what they all claim. Or are the prices as high as they are because shops previously have been getting by without having to lower their prices to compete with online shops? Everyone can agree health food is too expensive, so if a shop/chain were able to offer the same products or similar products from different brands at lower prices, I'm sure they would quickly gain a large customer base.. So maybe this simply isn't possible in Norway, I have no idea.