| You asked for honest feedback and here is mine. First of all your website Nootropics.com
I get a few red flags right away from the first visit. Your website is hidden behind a whois guard protection in Panama.
There is not much information about who you are and what kind of legal status your company has on the website. Hiding information about your company from the public eye when the customers trust is the only reason to buy a product that has potential to damage the customer's health long-term from you is not the best decision to build trust. The first google hit on your address 2885 Sanford Ave SW #36283 Grandville, MI 49418 gives me a link to a report titled: "Kleargear fracas: BBB investigating now-infamous online retailer with Grandville address." Source: http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2013/1...
This is not good for your image and building trust. That's the bad thing with Mailbox forwarding, if someone else did shady business on the same mailing address you use, people will automatically distrust you. Doing some search engine magic tells me that your strategy guy dropped out of a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience. This can mean two things; he either was not good enough to finish or to open a nootropics company was his lifelong dream. Either way, it shows that he chooses risk over stability. Now as a customer or investor I have to ask myself if he does the same with any other decisions related to your newfound business how much trust can I put in the safety and quality of your products. Another thing is false advertisement directly on the main page.
You state that your products are "Safe and secure." There is no way you can guarantee this, and you know that.
There are no long-term studies on the safety of many of the products you sell and they are not FDA approved for a reason. But just to mention a single example, let us see how that works for the first product I can see on your website. Adrafinil. Adrafinil is not only not regulated or approved by the FDA, the FDA sent out an Import Alert on 08/05/2016 that also includes Adrafinil capsules from a certain Chinese manufacturer because FDA field investigations and laboratory analyses have concluded that a number of imported products marketed as dietary supplements that are often promoted for sexual enhancement, weight loss, muscle building, lifestyle, and other claims, contain undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients. Because of problems like this the "Further Information" including your certificate of Authenticity needs to be more prominent.
I'd also include the test results for any subsequent batch. I am not sure if you are still selling the same batch PD: 3/1/2016 ED: 3/1/2018.
But you should do that for any batch you sell. "We provide only the best-supported compounds, alongside third-party testing and complete transparency" should be the main argument why I would shop at Nootropics.com over your competitors. It's no use to hide this information from the customer in menus somewhere at the end of the product description. As said in the beginning, the people who buy your products will most likely value effect and trustworthiness the most. If you are more expensive there needs to be a reason for customers to pay a premium over your competitors. But if I take twenty minutes of time to do a quick background check and conclude that your company looks "shady" then a lot of your customers will probably get the same impression. You need to fix that. Any investor will eat you alive over stuff like this. P.S: Edited out some personal stuff before someone cries doxing |
I see what you mean with the red flags. I wasn't aware that of the association with the mailbox forwarder, that's kind of unfortunate.
As for the PhD, that's inferring a little much; it could be that he judged Nootropics.com to have a higher expected positive impact on the world. But again, yeah, I see how that would increase a customer's worries.
We're indeed still selling that batch. I'm on two minds about displaying the COA more prominently; on the one hand frequent nootropics users would be looking for it, but on the other hand, New users might find it odd? But you're the second person with this feedback, so I think I should just update.