Amazon’s new policy for supplement sellers can go a long way to protect consumers, says NOW

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NOW (Bloomingdale, IL) is expressing support for Amazon’s new policy requiring dietary supplement sellers to provide documentation that demonstrates adherence to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory requirements for accurate labeling and cGMP compliance, with completion in February 2021. For years, NOW has been expressing concern for the number of adulterated products being sold on Amazon, even conducting independent tests of Amazon products to confirm their suspicions. Tests conducted by NOW of CoQ10, SAMe, and ALA products purchased on Amazon found that that contents of these products was inconsistent with their label claims.

“The requirement to submit a Certificate of Analysis that verifies those claims, and meets the FDA’s cGMP requirement, is a great step in cleaning up the market,” said Dan Richard, NOW’s vice president of global sales and marketing, in a press release. “It is in the best interest of Amazon and the consumer for Amazon to make it harder for supplement sellers to distribute inferior material.”

“As a business partner of Amazon, we reported all the quality problems we found to them and asked them to take action,” Richard added. “Assuming there will be a review of all the CofA’s and other provided documents to confirm they are legitimate, this will go a long way in making sure consumers are getting what they expect when they purchase supplements from Amazon.”