‘Private Label’ Nootropic Scams

How The Amazon Method Is Ruining The Nootropic Market

You will have probably noticed by now that many of our reviews refer to a common scam which is currently becoming astoundingly prevalent on Amazon.

That scam is the “Amazon Method”.

We think the word scam is fair here, because the basic premise here is making money without any effort by selling low-quality supplements to unsuspecting, desperate people for inflated sums of money.

There are many supplements reviewed on this site which are the result of the “Amazon Method”, and we don’t doubt that there re many more listed on third-party merchant sites which we may never get round to reviewing.

It seems to us that a new “Amazon Method” scam nootropic will pop up online every other week now.

It’s really depressing to see this happening.

We get plenty of queries each and every week from people looking to buy into these scammy supplements, and there are obviously many hundreds more who are spending their hard earned cash without getting a second opinion.

We’ve written this article to try and stop this from happening to as many people as possible.

Here, we will outline exactly what the “Amazon Method” is, how it is being applied to nootropics, and why you should be wary of it.

We’ll provide a list of all the nootropics currently reviewed on this site which are the result of this scam so you know which stacks to stay away from.

If you have any questions, or if you think you’ve come across another supplement which we need to add to our list, then let us know in the comments section below.

Private Label Scam – What Is The “Amazon Method”?

The “Amazon Method” is simply a short-hand for a private label selling technique which relies entirely on Amazon for fulfilling shipping and storage.

It is quite simply a very simple way of making money on Amazon. Obviously the same set-up can be used on other third-party merchant sites, but Amazon seems to be the most popular choice for reasons we will come to shortly.

So what does it entail exactly?

As we said, the “Amazon Method” relies on ‘private label’ products.

A private label product is a product made by a manufacturer which they offer up without their own branding.

They will offer a pre-made formula and allow individuals or companies to sell this formula as their own.

Wholesalers who offer private label products will manufacturer generic bottles containing the capsules or powder in question and then apply the unique branding supplied by individuals afterwards.

So for example, an individual following the “Amazon Method” would purchase a set amount of units of a private label supplement from a wholesaler.

They would just send over the money for, say, 1000 bottles, along with a pdf of their bottle labels.

That’s it.

They aren’t involved in choosing ingredients.

They aren’t involved in choosing doses.

All they do is send over the cash and a single pdf.

Many wholesalers will even offer to help individuals with designing their unique branding. So in some cases, the brands you see named on the bottles haven’t even been involved in designing their labels, let alone with formulation.

So where does Amazon come into it?

Well, a common tactic employed by individuals is to purchase a 500-1000 unit lot of a private label supplement and then have their order delivered to an Amazon warehouse.

Amazon will then take care of absolutely everything; storage, order processing, shipment, tracking, stock monitoring – everything.

They do this for a fee of course; we believe the current take for doing all of this is about 25% (this may vary from product to product, but we think this is the right figure for nootropics at least).

The “brand” shown on the supplement’s label may well be shown on the Amazon merchant page, but you will almost always see the “fulfilled by Amazon” tag on the page at the least.

Essentially then, individuals running the “Amazon Method” just have to put up the cash for their first order and then everything else is taken care of.

There is almost no risk involved on the part of the “brand” supposedly behind the product.

The sheer volume of customers going through Amazon every single day almost guarantees sales. Amazon will keep hold of product until it is all gone, so you aren’t at risk of having lots of unsold product on your hands.

There is no need to invest in order fulfillment, expensive storage space, or anything that might end up costing you more money than you make.

All an individual really needs it a laptop and some start-up cash.

They can then just sit back and wait until all of their first order is gone and then decide if they want to order another lot.

As we’ve said many a time by now, everybody wins in this scenario other than the customer.

The individual makes a tidy profit without any risk.

The wholesaler gets rid of their excess ingredients without having to market a supplement of their own.

Amazon makes their money from handling storage and shipping.

The only loser is the customer.

The customer is left with a generic, low-quality product which they have bought for a premium price.

You end up with a nootropic that doesn’t yield results but which costs them same as some of the best nooropics on the market.

That’s not good.

Private Label “Amazon Method” Nootropics

Some people may wonder if any of the “Amazon Method” nootropics are actually of good quality.

To this would we ask: would you offer up a market-leading blend for ‘private labeling’?

Do you think individuals would be able to buy a market-leading nootropic formula from somebody else, and then to pay 25% of their profits to Amazon, and to still make plenty of money?

No, of course not.

On the whole, nootropic supplements which result from this scammy method are of very low quality.

You can tell right away that manufacturers are using these pre-made ‘private label’ formulas as a way of getting rid of their excess stock.

They never contain more than one or two genuinely effective nootropic substances.

So for example, we might see some Bacopa monnieri and a little Tyrosine. We will then have 6-8 other ingredients which are sub-par, unproven, over-hyped, and cheap ingredients.

Typical examples include St. John’s Wort, Olive Leaf Extract, CoQ10, DMAE, and so on.

We will always have a couple of good ingredients (usually under-dosed) thrown in with terrible ingredients.

This is a very standard business practice not unique to the supplement industry.

Think of a chef working in a restaurant. He has lots of leftover vegetables which will go bad if he can’t use them. To minimize waste, he makes vegetables soup.

But then imagine he bills this soup as a carefully selected, gourmet soup made form the finest ingredients. Maybe he says it’s a “unique soup” which is good for your health.

Imagine he charges a premium price for what is essentially a leftover mix.

You wouldn’t be pleased to learn the truth would you?

Well, that’s what’s happening with ‘private label’ supplements.

Which Nootropics Are ‘Private Label’ Scams?

There are multiple formulas out there which are obviously private label products.

For example, there is this formula:

Check out the following list of supplements. You’ll notice that they all use this exact formula:

It is clear to us that all of these products originate from the same manufacturer.

The “brands” pretending to be the manufacturer are almost certainly just individuals (or groups of individuals) putting up the cash for a few hundred units which are then delivered to Amazon for fulfillment.

In some cases, they do run a website through which you can buy their supplements. Yet these will often just re-direct to Amazon.

The idea that they might be copying from one another is a little hard to entertain.

Why would you copy such a low-quality formula?

What is revolutionary about this formula which necessitates copying?

Nothing.

Here is another formula you will no doubt come across if you spend any time browsing for nootropics on Amazon:

And here is a list of supplements for you to check out:

Their formulae all look familiar, right?

It’s amazing to us how many of these supplements pop in such a short space of time.

First one appears, then another, and within a month or two there are dozens.

There is no sign of this sort of thing slowing down any time soon. We just hope that enough people read this post and get wise to this blatant scam before too many of them lose out.

They will not only lose money, but they will be put off nootropics forever when their first supplement turns out to be garbage.

They will never learn what nootropics can really do.

That is a serious shame.

Luke Mercia

Luke is our Editor in Chief. He is the main driving force behind NaturalNootropic.com, and he creates most of our most important content. He is extremely passionate about enhancing human cognition; he has experimented with many different nootropic substances over the years, sometimes with negative results. He wants to help people get more out of performance-enhancing supplements, and he is fascinated by recent advances in longevity research. He can be contacted by email at editor@naturalnootropic.com.

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Comments

Wendy says

2018 at 2:36 pm

Thank you for posting this. I just had a really bad experience with a We Are Fit nootropic and now I understand why. Also, when I bought the product a week ago, they had 123 positive reviews and 0 negative ones. All of those reviews have suddenly disappeared. Pretty sure I was scammed 🙁