Comment · Thu, August 13, 2020 · ND Owner
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What they were answering
RoboCrocoHorse · 2 points
Bit of a late reply here, but from my perspective, you’re absolutely doing the right thing. You don’t need me to tell you this, but you’re operating in an industry mostly defined by shadiness and false promises, so positioning yourself as a trustworthy, reliable and transparent player is definitely the right way to go about it in my eyes.
I'm not surprised at all to see that your competitors are engaging in shady practices- it's a reflection of their primary motivation for being in this business in the first place. You might lose a bit from an SEO perspective, but you probably gain a ton from customer loyalty and word of mouth, and you ensure longevity.
I agree that it's becoming increasingly harder to do things honestly, but there's still a lot of stuff that you can do marketing-wise that's by the book. You're already clear leaders just by the insane amount of work that you put into everything, the quality of your products and the overall transparency of the company. There's a clear stance and brand identity here, and having that come across more on your website and overall marketing activities could be worthwhile to differentiate ND from other companies. If there's one thing I learned is that it's not enough to simply provide a superior service or product, you need to broadcast that to people for them to get it. That might not have been necessary 5-10 years ago when the co…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Very true. Sometimes I need to do a better job of explaining just how far we are going to ensure things are right every time. I can get a bit of tunnel vision, since I live it every day. So I don't always realize that new people have no idea who we are, everything we have done over the years, or just how shady the industry as a whole is. We definitely could do a better job of showing new customers that, and explaining the intricacies of things. We do have a lot of very loyal customers, that's for sure.
My biggest frustration at the moment is with Amazon. It's literally the shittiest fraud ridden platform on the internet! The top brands on there are total garbage. Some are completely fake. We have sent the analytical test reports to Amazon showing they were fake, and they don't care. They don't do anything about it. Literally every single top product on there got to that point by buying reviews and running whole programs where you give away product for 5 star reviews. It's all against Amazon's TOS, but they don't care! I wish I could just ignore Amazon, but over half of all search traffic for dietary supplements is on Amazon now. There are more searches every month for supplements on Amazon than Google. You have to be on Amazon these days. So we try to follow the rules, and we get screwed. Plus, Amazon takes around 36% of all the sales for the privilege of getting screwed! Then our competitors report our listings to get them pulled, and Amazon does it! We just had our NMN listing pulled because someone reported that it contained compounds from coca leaf... So now we have to convince Amazon our NMN is not cocaine because someone reported it. This happens ALL THE TIME, too. Anyway, a lot of my frustration is with the Amazon thing. The top selling brands are literally the worst. It's the only place out there where that can happen, and everyone knows how it is happening, but Amazon does nothing to stop it. All the reviews are fake or compensated. Everyone breaks the rules. Chinese sellers hijack your listings. I hope one day Amazon gets broken up, and we don't have to deal with that garbage pile of a marketplace anymore.