As you know, the supplements industry moves millions of dollars every year. There are countless brands and distributors. According to this, one of the trickiest things for the bodybuilder is finding reliable stores that offer quality brands at competitive prices. In this post, I’ll share with you my personal experience with online supplement stores. Hope this helps.
- Bodybuilding.com
This is probably the most popular store, and this fame is well founded. It offers a lot of variety at very competitive prices (from the perspective of a European citizen). The worst is probably the international shipping, which is only available via International Postal Service (at least to Spain). This results in expensive and slow shipping, and without tracking support.
A word of caution for Spanish customers (in fact, I think that this applies to all the EU customers) that want to shop in this store. Keep in mind that your supplements could be seized by customs. This occurs because it classifies certain food supplements as medicine, especially vitamins and other products with physiological effects. Food supplements classified as medicine cannot be imported without an import license. Only authorized importers are allowed to import medicine. The importer has to provide an import permit issued by the Ministry of Health. The medicine must be registered in Spain, otherwise the importation will not be allowed. Private individuals cannot import medicine unless they can provide a medical prescription from a doctor and a special authorization from the Ministry of Health issued for the respective shipment. If the importer cannot provide an import license (or the private consignee cannot provide a prescription), the goods will be returned to the shipper or destroyed.
Taking into account these customs restrictions, Europeans are forced to search for alternatives within their frontiers. UK stores offer most of the US products, with quite competitive prices for the rest of Europe, especially considering the current euro-pound exchange rate.
- SS Health Foods
Probably the best UK supplement store. Many products of reputable brands such as Optimum Nutrition or Dymatize are available in this store, and offering probably the most competitive prices in Europe. Shipping is fast, but not very cheap.
- MyProtein
An online store from the UK that sells bulk supplements (i.e. generic brand). I typically use it to purchase bulk carbohydrates (i.e. dextrose, maltodextrin, oats …). You can find them in sizes that are hardly available in other stores. A final remark, if you use this MyProtein referral code (MP104567), you’ll get a 5% discount on your first order. Shipping is fast and with a reasonable price.
- Discount Supplements
Another UK store with a good supplement offering. I especially appreciate its variety on multi-vitamins, minerals, and joint supplements. Prices are quite good, though they have stock problems with some products sometimes. Shipping rates are quite cheap (even free for orders over 200 pounds).
These are the online stores I have used so far. In the future, I’ll update this post with my new experiences.
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