Putting this up now rather than when I am certain, because by then it will not help anybody.
Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
A caveat about community reputation: it is a lagging indicator. Reports arrive weeks after orders, so a supplier can look excellent for a month after quality has already changed.
What to check: 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.
If your experience contradicts this, say so in the thread — I would rather be corrected here than have people act on a warning that does not hold.
COA_Karl said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
That is correct as far as it goes, and here is where it stops going. The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation. Independent test results commissioned by buyers rather than by the seller, consistency across multiple batches over time rather than one flattering report, a physical address and a company registration that resolve, batch and lot numbers on the actual labelling, and a shipping practice that matches what the material needs. Everything a good-looking website provides is cheap to fake; none of the items above are.
COA_Karl 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 StandardsThis one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. 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.
LipidDoc_ATL said:The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation.
Agreed, and mass spec answers a question purity does not: identity. High purity tells you one thing dominates the chromatogram, not that it is the molecule you ordered. A mass within about a dalton of expected is the identity check.