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Essential Oils

Smart Ways To Shop

2- Essential Oil Samples

Some essential oil businesses offer samples, but most do not. When they do offer samples, it is always a sign of honesty. It sounds like their message is, "We are so sure about the quality of our products, that you can try them before investing in larger quantities. We are not here just to sell you one time, but to have a long business relationship with you". Of course, you still have to shop around between businesses who offer samples for the best price and variety.

These types of essential oil businesses usually provide the samples at or around their cost. However please remember, essential oil samples are not free, because not only it is a cost to a business, but also some people may order hundreds of free samples under different names instead of buying a larger quantity. It is very costly for a larger company to keep track of that type of activity.

One of the best ways to run an essential oil company is to offer samples, but not to accept returns. Customers can try the samples before investing a lot of money before ordering a larger size. So when they order larger sizes, it's exactly what they expect and want. Therefore, they will keep and use the oil. The problem is some companies do not offer samples but they accept returns. There is always a few customers who will not like the quality of the oil after they pour it from the bottle and use some. These customers probably send the essential oil back for a refund. There is a possibility this essential oil is now contaminated. What do you think the seller will do with this expensive but possibly contaminated essential oil? Will he throw it away or put it back on the shelf for someone like you to order it again? If the seller claims the returned essential oils are thrown away, would you believe it?

Just remember, offering samples is an excellent sign in process of shopping around to choosing a high essential oil company.

Solutions: First of all, some essential oil businesses are aware of this matter, and they list these types of misleading essential oils both in English and Botanical Names. Click on a Botanical Name, once you see the description page, look to see if the English Name is mentioned. If so, they did this as a service not to confuse you.

Secondly, if an essential oil name does not sound English to you, such as "Zingiber Officinale" simply type that word in a search engine as: Zingiber Officinale essential oil, and you will find a lot of the companies listing it with its English Name: Ginger!

3- Watch for the available sizes

This is a fairly new way for some essential oil retailers to make more profit. Let's first see what is the common sizes of essential oils, and then we can see how some essential oil businesses are taking advantage of it.

Well, it basically means all of the essential oils made from this particular plant in hundreds or thousands of farms all over the world are only sold through one business, and that's why their prices are so high! That doesn't sound right, does it?

In United States, essential oils are sold traditionally in 3 different measurement groups:

a) Small Sizes: These sizes are 15 ml and smaller, such as 10 ml and 5 ml. Smaller sizes are measured by "Milliliter", which is a European volume standard based on metric system.

b) Medium Sizes: These sizes are 1 oz, 2 oz, and 4 oz. Medium sizes are measured by "ounces", which is a popular system in the U.S.A.

c) Large Sizes: Usually any size larger than 4 oz. Some of the larger sizes are sold both by volume (Ounces) or by weight (Pounds). For example, some retailers sell you an 8 oz or 16 oz essential oil, while some sell you you the same thing as 1/2 pound or one pound essential oil.

These are some of strategies a retailer may adapt:

a) Limiting the availability of smaller sizes

If a blend recipe calls for a small amount of a particular essential oil, let's say less than 10ml or even a 5 ml, but your retailer's smallest size starts at 15 ml, then you have already been switched to a larger size.

Solution: Next time, instead of being switched to a larger size, switch to another business who has the sizes you need.

b) Sudden elimination of a size

Let's say, once in a while, you have been ordering 2 oz of the same essential oil from the same retailer. But this time around, when you go to the retailer's website, you notice they have completely eliminated the 2 ounce sizes from all of their essential selections. At this point, if you insist to do business with them, you either have to buy 2 bottles of 1 oz, which doubles their profits, or pay a lot more than you originally budgeted for, and order a 4 oz size. Now, you really are helping them to increase their profit margin around 300-400%.

One thing is on your side, if you order a 4 oz, then you will have 2 oz of the oil left for next time; Of course, depending on the following conditions:

If there is a next time
If you remember where you stored it
If later on, you find another blend recipe that works even better for what you need, but the new recipe does not use this particular essential oil
Most of all, if the shelf life of the oil expires, then you have to throw it away

More

Solution: When they eliminated your choice, then you should eliminate doing business with them.

c) Sudden change of size

You go to your favorite essential oil website, and notice they now have replaced their 4 oz essential oil with a new size. Instead of a 4 oz essential oil for the same price or even a small increase, you will now get a new 100 ml bottle instead. It sounds great, until you convert 100 ml to ounces which is only 3.38 ounces instead of 4 oz. This means, for the same price or slightly more, you will get 0.62 ounces less (More than 1/2 ounce less). If you place an order, you will get the essential oil in a bottle made for 100 ml., so the bottle will look completely full while you get 0.62 ounces less.

Do you know with 0.62 ounces of an essential oil you can fill a 1/2 ounces bottle, then with the left over fill a 10 ml. bottle, then you can still fill two sample vials, and still have some left. That's a lot of money out of your pocket.

Solution: They brought an unpleasant change to you, then maybe you should consider changing your essential oil supplier.

c) Retailers who offer only 1 or 2 sizes

There are some essential oil retailers who only offer their essential oils in 1 or 2 sizes, and usually those are the smaller sizes. By limiting the consumers choices to this extreme, they can only sell to consumers who need those exact sizes. To make a lot of profit from selling smaller sizes, most of these types of retailers have a much higher price than the market average to maintain a high profit. Of course, to convince people to pay more for smaller sizes, some of these types of retailers also approach their customers with slogans such as, "My product is unique, and it is the best quality in the world" routine.

I got 3 Choices:

This, That, or Nothing!

Solution: If paying higher prices for smaller sizes is not what you are looking for, then you should move on!

d) Watch for strange sizes

In searching the internet for the best deal on a specific 15 ml essential oil, all of a sudden, you may come across a website that offers 16 ml Bottles instead of 15 ml!!! What is that??? Does that mean a glass bottle manufacturer in Europe just designed a new bottle size for this small US company? By the way, if it's really a 15 ml bottle they are sending and claiming to send you 16 ml, then how do they fit the extra ml into the bottle, and how can you check and measure for 1 ml extra essential oil with common house hold measuring devices? You can find a lot of strange essential oil bottle sizes on the internet, such as 11 ml, or 12 ml. instead of the standard 10 ml. or 15 ml. This is their way of telling their customers, they will get more for their money.

Would You like a

18 ml. potion in a

magical 16 ml. bottle?

There might be some hardcore essential oil users out there who would not be amused by these types of claims, and they wonder if the bottle size is a false claim, then how good and therapeutic is the quality of the essential oil they put in the bottle?

Solution: Even if you believe a retailer gives you 1 or 2 ml extra, still the price of the bottle should be considered against the average market value, also the quality of the oil must be high enough to your expectation. The main point is, when 30 ml is approximately 1 oz, and 1 ml is only about 30 drops of oil, do you find the retailer's selling method for offering 1 ml extra oil a trusting signal for the quality and service you deserve?

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