Vitamin World review: awful experience 13

I used to buy from them too but they have quadrupeled their prices from 2 years ago and the girl there said they were horrible to work for and it is owned by a miserable man who hate everyone including himself! She said you can get a much better deal at Vitamin Shop

This was posted by someone at http://groups.google.com/group/alt.society.liberalism/browse_thread/thread/be399580d134997f#

Greetings,

First of all, Vitamin World and Rexall sold through Wal-Mart are
different labels for the same product: both are the same company, but
stupid people pay twice the price at Vitamin World than to just buy
the same brand at Wal-Mart.

But, anyway, here is an example of why Vitamin World products are
absolute crap: their green tea capsules are not standardized for the
active ingredient called EGCG, see http://www.vitaminworld.com/vf/labels/017505VW.pdf
On the other hand, Vitamin Shoppe's green tea has much more active
ingredients, see http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/store/en/browse/sku_detail.jsp?id=VS-1678

This is just one example. Same thing for most other supplements, like
ginkgo biloba, turmeric, resveratrol, fish oil, and everything!
Vitamin World is cheating you by charging you high for weak products:
even Wal-Mart's own brand has more active ingredients than Vitamin
World!

And if that was not bad enough, if you go to a Vitamin World store,
the employees get 2.5% commission on outside brands, but 5.5%
commission on their own brands, so the employees will push you to buy
their own brand, even though the outside brands are better quality.
And then will LIE to you and tell you that there is no difference
between their own brand and the outside one so that they get the
higher percentage commission! And the president of Vitamin World
encourages this lying. For example, the news is all about the
resveratrol. But, the active ingredient is called “trans-
resverarol.” Vitamin World’s brand is not standardized for trans-
resveratrol, but the outside brand they carry is. So, the employees
will lie to you and say that there is no difference between the two
brands.

Also, Vitamin World employees are required to aggressively add on more
and more supplements to each person’s purchase, REGARDLESS of any
concern for overdosing. The employees are not physicians or bio-
scientists: most only have high school diplomas. Yet they are
required to convince the customers to buy and use everything they can
be manipulated into buying and to use them everyday. Most
employees, in order to please the Vitamin World CEO, as well as to
make higher commission, make stuff up to get the sale. Iron and
vitamin A and zinc are toxic at high amounts, but employees are
encouraged to sell any amount without any knowledge of side-effects.

Vitamin World makes money by taking advantage of the ignorance of
senior citizens and the Hispanics who don’t speak English well, even
newer philipino immigrants. These people are not as savvy about
understanding the label, or internet savvy so they can research things
online.

Finally, vitamin world employees are trained with a multitude of
selling scripts which they must memorize and use on customers. They
are told to say, when a customer is doubtful about a product, that “I
understand how you feel, but most of our customers have tried this
product and just loved it! So let’s get you rung up.” The kicker:
this is a lie they are told to say by the vitamin world president:
most customers have not said they loved the product. But, it’s a type
planned lie that they can get away with and avoid the FDA’s wrath.

So, where should you shop? Most products are better quality than
Vitamin World. Try out Vitamin Shoppe, or the best products are sold
by Life Extension brand. Even GNC and Walmart are better. Source
naturals, Now, and Solaray products are much better also.

BOYCOTT VITAMIN WORLD!

_____________________________________________________________________

Follow-up:

What info. do you want? How about that all Vitamin World employees
are required to have two training meetings a year where we engage in
role-playing to practice the selling scripts. The script goes
something like this:

"Welcome to Vitamin World. My name is Jimmy, and you are? [the
customer then gives us a weard look for asking their name].
"What brings you in today?" [the customer then tells us what their
health needs are]
"I see, you have high cholesterol. Vitamin World scientists have put
together a heart health program for that." [each program has exactly
three products so that a good sale can be acomplished: it does not
matter if they really need all that stuff of if they will overdose]
"Let's get you started!" [we are then supposed to not show or mention
the price of the program, and try to conceal the price tag, and then
we are supposed to quickly get them to the register so that they don't
have time to think about what they are buying or to consider the
price. Next, we are supposed to offer them the program of the month,
a random 3-product program for whatever health issue, again not
carring if they really need it or if they will overdose on anything].
"Thank you, and please come back and tell us how well the program
worked for you!"

So, this is the outlined version of the main selling script. We also
have contingency scripts if in case the customer resists our selling
pitch.

Vitamin World sends out secret shoppers to see if we comply with the
selling scripts, and are then disciplined if we fail.

Consumerreports.org did an undercover investigation of Best Buy for
unethical practices: they sent out employees to act as customers at
samples of BestBuy stores, and then they did an article on what they
found. Consumerreports.org needs to do this for Vitamin World and
expose them. Will someone here volunteer to contact
Consumerreports.org and notify them of this posting?

_________________________________________________________________________

Follow-up:

The president of Vitamin World believes that Americans are stupid
###s. This belief is shown by the "buy one, get one free" or "buy
one, get half off the second" sales trick. For example, the regular

price for an item is $24.99. But then, on certain months, they will
have a "special" on that item where if you buy one, you get the second
for free of for half off. But here is the deception: on the sale

month, the price of the item is raised to $31.99! So, you pay higher
for the first item, and then you get half off $31.99 for the second
item, instead of half off the normal price of $24.99. Or you pay

higher for the first item, and then get the second for free. If all
you wanted was just one item, you end up paying MORE for the so-called
"sale" item than you did before the sale started!

Vitamin World is bragging that they are opening up another 50 or so
stores nationally. I guess all their deception has paid off for
them. God help us.

I must agree, I tried to get a bottle of vitamins that had been in a house fire replaced & they said no. It was my first time shopping there. I even called the "Customer Service" & they said that it wasn't their fault there was a fire ! Wow ! I won't be going there ever. They could have made it a good experience, but they decided not to. WOW!

[censor] all of you

Illegal Immigrants should have to pay extra, they pay no [censor]ing taxes, you [censor]-holes! So, to hell with all of you!

Blow Me!

Vitamin World is a reputable company, outstanding...

I worked for many years for Vitamin World. was very happy with the company and assumed they were happy with me, till 2008, I had always gotten exceptional yearly reviews and wage increases. What ever was asked I did. I fully believed in the company and its products. During the sales drop of 08, they started the scripts, thinking that would help improve the sales. It did NOT. All the scripts did was make it harder to gain trust of potential customers since we had lost up to at least 300 customers a month during these trying times. Eventually the employee's began to get written up and threatened with termination if they did not have an average sale of 35.00 dollars each day/week/month. So you see why all the "push and shove routine" People were scared of losing their jobs in more ways than you can imagine. I became one of them. I am older than most my X coworkers, not bilinqaul, was paid more than most my co-workers (except for the Manager) and was with the company the longest of the whole store. In a coporate world, if you were forced to fire someone to cut cost. Where do you think that axe would fall. Dont blame the employee's for that routine. they were not the designer's of it. And even with a perfect shop report based on the scripts (and not many got a good score) I was still terminated for average sale the very next month.

and as far as the refund thing. It deducts from your daily sales, you may make your goal, But when you refund it takes away, even an exchange for 0 Dollar tendered or returned is a transaction that has no $ amount and lowers the average sale. Yes it is wrong to not do them and they should be held accountable. I missed my daily goal many times by doing refunds and exchanges. By following policy your jobs on the line. But you still the commission. The last thing I would want was a complaint for not following policy, just another reason to fire you. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Retail nightmare.

I agree with most of the comments here. The sales scripts, the add ons, etc. I had many years experience before working for them, and although I followed the basics of what they call the VW Commitment, I would not sell something to someone if they didn't have a need for it. Or if the quality wasn't up to par. Like their resveratrol that someone mentioned, or their turmeric, and other products. All their own brand protein powders use artificial sweeteners, which I would never take. If someone asked if I used (or would use) a specific product, I would never lie. Luckily, no one asked me about the protein powder - it was a big selling item. And I would only tell a customer that someone loved the product if someone had really told me that.

One other tactic they had was to tell us they wanted several specific products sold each day, such as liquid L-Carnitine - I sold very few, LOL, as it has a preservative, which I wouldn't personally take. I'd steer them toward the capsules, and the acetyl l carntine, which has more benefits anyway.

The bottom line is this - you can get better quality products at lower prices online, and usually avoid shipping if you order over a certain amount. And save on gas as you don't have to drive to the store.

I managed the Tallahassee, FL store location for 2 and a half years, and the only thing I can say was that it was one of the worst experiences of my life! The district manager, Kevin Hart and regional manger, Linda Barber were completely biased and complete idiots when it came to products. The only thing that they were trying to push was the sale of products. Truthfully, half of the supplements they were selling was virtually saw dust. Absolute bottom-of-the-line worthless crap. They would always try to push the VW products and say that that it was as good as a more reputable brand and completely LIE to the customers. Upper management always treated the employees like crap, and always had unrealistic expectations of rivaling other well-known and better stores such as The Vitamin Shoppe and GNC. Another line they would tell employees to say to customers is, "our products are the same as this better known product, but we can make it cheaper". The truth is that you get what you pay for! I thought it interesting when in 2001, they were almost sued by Muscletech because VW completely copied the Hydroxycut formula. These geniuses didn't do their research to see that there was a patent on the formula, and as a consequence had to pull the product from the shelf. If you work there, good luck on getting a proper lunch break, because it won't happen. The bottom line is that NBTY is a generic place to work for that has the interest of of putting out a good product the last thing to do on their list, but only to make a dollar at the expense of unsuspecting customers. RUN FAR AWAY!

I went to Vitamin World for one supplement . Immediately after being greeted by an associate, she began to hard sell me on other items. Even though I had told her my budget allowed for only this one purchase, she continued to tell me I need other supplements.

I eat a very healthy diet and I realize supplements are to SUPPLEMENT anything lacking in a diet. I pretty much have it covered with a few staples (vit D, calcium, fish oil).

After constant needling, I finally had to tell her I'm not working and too broke to buy other things.
She got the message and backed down. THEN I went to pay for the bottle I came in for. There were samples of sublingual B-12, I was offered a sample and then THAT associate began to persuade me to buy that. I told her I use injectable B12 on my own. (I'm a former medic, so IMs are not big thing)

She looked at me like I was crazy.

I actually found myself walking quickly out of the store just to get away from everything-
I later found the same brand and double the amount of product for the same price on Amazon.
Looks like I'll do online ordering; no pressure, embarrassment and a better deal!

Joey Fly...the former CEO..is a ###ING sociopath who is one of the biggest ###ing fat ###, chain smoking ### that I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. I know this ###...and this company should burn in hell!