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Swanson

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Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: March 26th, 2024

Swanson Health Products has been in business since 1969. It was founded by Leland Swanson — a man who was always striving to find help for his arthritis. He ended up starting Swanson Health Products, a small family-run business that sold vitamins. 

The company grew very rapidly and was recently bought by a private equity firm, Swander Pace Capital. It has grown to become one of the largest online retailers in the world, offering its services not only to the United States but also to many other countries.

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The Good

  • Large Selection on Health Products
  • Compare Box Tool
  • Customer Service
  • Promotions and Discounts
  • Giving Back

Large Selection on Health Products

Swanson Health Products offers a wide selection of vitamins and supplements in the following categories: Food and Beverage, Beauty, CoQ10, Heart, Sports Nutrition, Joint, Herbs, Digestive, EFAs, Bone, and Immune. Each section is then broken down into subcategories for easy browsing. 

Being one of the leaders in the industry, Swanson Health Products has what most people are looking for with vitamins, supplements, and minerals. Since all of its items come from good manufacturing companies, all of its products are known to be safe and well tested. 

Among its products, you will find almost anything you're looking for: natural health products, dietary supplements, organic foods, health and wellness products, nutritional supplements, and women's health products, as well as hundreds of other products that are all available through its online store. Among the most popular are its new weight loss products such as keto-related products, apple cider vinegar, weight loss teas and coffees, etc.

The products that this company offers range from the very best and most expensive to the cheap but useful. This company wants all of its customers to have access to all of its products; it does this by offering high-quality products to those looking to have the best name-brand vitamins. It also offers thousands of products that promote wellness and health at a price that almost anyone can afford.

Compare Box Tool

When looking at hundreds of products, you can often forget about some or not know what to compare them to. To simplify your shopping experience, take advantage of the product comparison feature. Just click the Compare box next to the desired items and view their details side-by-side. 

For example, if you are comparing different digestive health supplements, you can click on the compare button next to the item you are looking at, and it is saved at the bottom of the screen. Then, you can leave the page and continue looking at its hundreds of digestive health products. When you find another one you like, click the same compare button and review the two items selected. 

This is a great tool to help you compare many items at the same time. You can compare price, quality, quantity, how natural the product is, and the ingredients, allowing you to understand and decide clearly which product you will use. 

Customer Service

Swanson offers thorough information about each product, including dosages, ingredients, suggestions for use, warnings, and a description of how the product works in your body. Each product page also includes an image of the full product label, so you have as much information as possible before purchasing. 

If you need assistance while shopping, Swanson's customer service phone number is featured prominently in the site header — or you can choose a live chat option. This company's personal care of its products and customers throughout the process of ordering their vitamins is among the best in the industry.

Swanson ships both domestically and internationally. Domestic shipping starts at $4.99 and will arrive 7–10 business days from the ship date. International shipping also starts at $4.99 but will incur an additional freight cost based upon the weight of the order and the destination, which will be calculated during your checkout process. The average shipping time for international orders is 15 business days.

Promotions and Discounts

The homepage features several current promotions on customer favorites, which helps to streamline the shopping experience by making it easy to find discounted and popular items. 

In addition to its regular promotions, Swanson offers a one-time, 20 percent off deal to new customers who sign up for the mailing list. This discount can only be used the first order but is a great deal for all of its products. Swanson Health Products also will offer Swanson Vitamins coupons and other coupons as a promotion to provide lower prices on its products.

Giving Back

Swanson is committed to supporting charitable organizations and has donated time and funds to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Special Olympics, Roger Maris Cancer Center, United Way, United Blood Services, Holiday Clearing Bureau, Fargo Senior Commission Meals on Wheels, Cass County Health and more. You can find this throughout its social media pages and can stay updated on events that it is helping out at near you.

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The Bad

  • Shipping Cost
  • Pop-up Issues

Shipping Cost

Swanson Health Products offers only one free shipping deal, and you have to spend at least $50 in order to take advantage of it. The company doesn't offer any flat-rate shipping deals like many of the other online vitamin stores we reviewed. 

In addition, the shipping rates are slightly higher and the delivery timelines are slightly slower. Swanson also doesn't ship to specified international locations, including Iran, Nigeria, Ghan, North Korea, Russia, and Cuba, among others.

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The Bottom Line

Swanson Health Products is among the leaders in the industry and it is clear why. Although Swanson Health Products’ shipping options could use some improvement, its customer service is unmatched in the industry. Not only that, but this company has an easy-to-navigate website design, a huge variety of products in its online store, and it runs hundreds of different promotions and discounts.

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Star Rating

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2.3

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81 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

23%

4 grade

4%

3 grade

9%

2 grade

6%

1 grade

58%

Sentiment Criteria

Value

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Quality

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Service

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Amy Pagnozzi Brewster, MA

I used to give it five stars when Lee Swanson owned it (I was a customer for 30 years) but I no longer trust the Swanson's brand products since they were taken over by a capital investment fund. I received turkey tail extract that wasn't turkey tail extract (I wasn't expecting it to be the quality it claimed since the price was many 1/4 of their next highest comprtitor. But my dog has cancer and I couldn't get two other brands with verified test results because they were out of stock. The product was useless. It was the wrong color and taste for turkey tail (coriolus) extract. Even then I wouldn't have been upset: mushroom supplements have one of the highest rates for fraud. But when I asked Swanson's to investigate (I sent them photos of their brand beside the others) they did absolutely nothing! I spoke to two different phone agents and wrote long emails with attachments. I was refunded, but that isn't the point -- this is a supplement primarily bought by people trying to survive cancer. In my correspondence I let them know that I believed the product was counterfeit and that I had a background running clinical trials and doing FDA submissions. They should have queried their supply chain and sent me copies of third party lab results. Worst of all, they deleted my one star product review on their site warning customers to find a better turkey tail source! Previously, I had another issue where Swanson brand magnesium citrate wasn't fully reacted (to make it you combine magnesium oxide with citric acid -- it wasn't fully combined). It was one of my regular purchases. I didn't want a refund -- I was just letting them know as a courtesy there was a quality control issue. They were very nice but the product was neither re-sourced or reformulated so clearly no one followed up. All that said, there are still some products my household needs that we continue to buy from Swansons -- their price for 400mg coQ10 has gone up by 40% sadly, but we need a lot of it and it is still slightly cheaper than elsewhere. Basically, I still trust them on products we take for non-life threatening health issues that are symptomatic. (If the coq10 is fake I will feel it -- so far that one is still legit). But I no longer fill up a big cart with hundreds of dollars worth of stuff like I did when I knew for sure it was solid quality at the fairest price. The quality isn't uniformly reliable and the price can often be beat elsewhere.

2 years ago

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Ted Pass Needham Heights, MA

swanson products are fine, but their website routinely cheats customers who order on it. Yesterday Aug 25 I clicked on an email from Swanson offering 25% off all products with the Swanson brand. I ordered 5 items and each time it showed me the price after 25% off. When finished I confirmed my credit card and address and clicked to place the order. I receipt appeared showing higher prices than I had been quoted for each item. I called Swanson the next day and was told that I had requested the 15% off price and received that. At no time did I say I wanted 15% off since the price that day was 25% off. The website does the conversion for you when you place the order, raising the price on each item. I have had this happen several times and each time have been told that I had bought on a 15% promotion. This may be just incompetent web development, but it has happened over many months, and it is clear Swanson has no interest in fixing it. Why should they? They make more money and most customers don't notice they have been overcharged.

5 years ago

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Matt Binghamton, NY

EDIT: They sent me a replacement Bought a four month supply of a vitamin, third bottle’s contents were covered in a brown powder. Turns out the container was cracked and the contents are covered in tiny shards of glass. Being that I bought four months worth and I didn’t open the bottles until needed all customer service told me was it’s past the 30 day refund period, and that I should just throw away the damaged item....

5 years ago

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Penny Tilton Topeka, KS

Great vitamins, horrible shipping. Their shipping is expensive and it takes WAY to long. You can pay more than the cost of the vitamins you ordered to get them faster. I hate over paying for shipping the vitamins I order but it is the only place to get them at this time. When I find a comparable item from another company I will switch in a heart beat, Swansons shipping is that bad!!

6 years ago

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S.J. Webster Allen, TX

Now I remember why I order from VitaCost instead of Swanson's. Tonight their website would not let me put some of my checkout information in. Of course there is no phone number and the chat didn't work. What a shame this company is now such a dud.

6 years ago

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Aubrey Rentschler Salt Lake City, UT

Shipping is fast and their products are priced great. If you sign up for their emails they send coupon codes as well.

7 years ago

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Denise H. Mona, UT

I use their vitamin b capsules and have been happy with them; the price and quality are decent.

7 years ago