I'm not necessarily saying that online shopping is bad, per se. In this day and age I think that many retail owners need to do a combination of both to stay competitive. Certainly I think people would prefer to buy single samples locally, and perhaps boxes (multiple units) online. My gripe is with iHerb, specifically. It is nonsensical to assume that Norwegian businesses can grow and become competitive against a mass-volume international distributor in USA - who avoid paying Norwegian VAT and import tariffs like local companies. Norwegian companies can't come close to matching iHerb's UPD/DHL rates either. This is not to mention the myriad other factors that benefit iHerb in USA. Their labour costs are what, $7-8 an hour? What would employment cost in Norway for people to do the same job (packing and boxing)? Would it be reasonable to pay a Norwegian <50 krona an hour in order to be competitive (even if it were allowed)? The playing field is not on par, and the only people who win with this disparity in the end are iHerb Become too dependent on them, and you won't allow Norwegian stores the required volume to become more competitive in the future. But really, this is not an exercise in morality I'll conclude here the same way I started - 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
