Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
Long enough now to say something useful rather than something enthusiastic.
Red flags, in rough order of how much they should worry you: no verifiable address, no batch numbers, prices far under market, vendor-commissioned tests only, pressure toward irreversible payment, and shipping with no temperature control.
One flattering data point from a group buy is not consistency. Consistency means separate batches, separately commissioned, over months.
The bit I cannot resolve on my own is how people are distinguishing a supplier having a bad batch from a supplier on the way out. Numbers rather than impressions, if you have them.
LabKate said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
Agreeing with LabKate, and the qualification matters more than the agreement. Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion. Synthesis, testing, and cold-chain shipping have floors. A price well under the floor means something was skipped, and the two things that get skipped are testing and content.
LabKate said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
I disagree that testing history is decisive. It tells you what a supplier did when they were being watched. Continuity of behaviour under stress — a late shipment, a failed test, a complaint — is more predictive than any run of good results.
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Shop Reference StandardsTaking the question as asked, rather than the general version of it. The pattern that distinguishes a bad batch from an exit is behaviour rather than product. A bad batch comes with communication, a reshipment offer and a batch number. An exit comes with slower replies, pressure toward less reversible payment methods, sudden discounting, and the same reassurance repeated without any new information. The product tells you less than the correspondence does.
JessicaH_TX said:Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion.
This is my experience too, for whatever a second data point is worth. I had assumed I was the exception until I read this.