What is iHerb Malaysia – 5 things you need to know

Hello, today I want to share about e-commerce that is on the rise, especially during the pandemic in the country, the store is called iHerb. You might have heard about it from friends or relatives or maybe from social media about this store. So who and what iHerb is selling, an online store that makes many people talk about it.

The iHerb is available in Malaysia, it doesn’t mean the company has a representative in this country, but this store already supports shipping to Malaysia with several advantages such as free shipping with a minimum spend.

The reason why iHerb has started to be discussed, especially during the pandemic, is because this online company has a complete collection of products, especially vitamins and supplements from various brands at affordable prices.

Nowadays our citizens are more aware of their personal health, one of which is by increasing their immune amid the threat of a dangerous disease. One of the efforts to increase the body’s immune system is to consume several types of vitamins and supplements.

However, due to soaring demand, some vitamins and supplements are becoming scarce in our local market, like Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2 and Zinc. These products can still be purchased in online stores and marketplaces, but the price has increased to an unreasonable one because of the scarcity, making it unaffordable for some people.

Due to unreasonable product prices and concerns about getting counterfeit products, some people took the initiative to buy vitamins and supplements directly from the manufacturer or at least the country where the brand originated.

The United States of America or the USA is the home country of the most popular supplement and vitamin brands. Example of vitamin and supplement brands that has quite a lot of demand in our country is NOW, California Gold Nutrition, Doctor’s Best, Natures Bounty and others. All of these products are available in full at affordable prices on iHerb.

What is iHerb and where does the company come from?

iHerb is a global e-commerce company that was founded and operated in 1996 in the United States, USA. Called a global company because, in addition to serving domestic delivery (US), they also serve buyers from all over the world, including Malaysia.

The company’s main fulfilment centre is in Southern California, but as a global company, they also have warehouses in South Korea and Japan. From the company’s name, you can guess that this online retail company sells natural products which include vitamins, supplements and other herbal products.

If you are still unfamiliar with iHerb, what about supplements and vitamins offered with a California Gold Nutrition brand. Their product packaging characteristic is a white bottle with gold accents that are currently available in Malaysian online stores and marketplaces? FYI, it’s an iHerb exclusive brand. Scan a QR code printed in the product’s packaging or you can also type the website address (calgn.com), everything will go to iHerb.com.

Are iHerb products safe?

As we’ve explained previously, iHerb is an official and registered company in the United States. In addition to selling supplement products from their own brands such as California Gold Nutrition which has been used by many Malaysians, they also sell products from other brands.

Several other brands that are also quite popular in Malaysia such as NOW Foods and Doctor’s BEST can also be found on their platform. There you can find more than 30,000 products from various brands with the cheapest to the most expensive price tags.

The products they offer are guaranteed to be genuine considering iHerb is one of the largest retailers in the US. Even some sellers in the local marketplace platforms also import products from iHerb directly and then resell them.

At iHerb, there is no third-party seller like in the marketplace in our country. All products that are sold in iHerb are brought in directly from manufacturers or other trusted sources. The fulfilment process is carried out directly at their own distribution centre.

The laws in America are very strict about the sale of counterfeit products. iHerb as the largest online retailer in the US of course must follow these rules and certainly will not take the risk to distribute counterfeit products that can damage their already good reputation.

iHerb is less expensive?

Why are the prices of the products displayed on the iHerb website are cheaper when compared to local marketplaces? That is probably one of the questions that will be asked by some people. The reason why it’s cheaper is that iHerb sells products produced locally or in their own country so it’s cheaper.

Another reason, as a large retailer and serves global shipping, this company must buy its products directly from the factory in large quantities so that they can offer them cheaper. Sometimes the price is cheaper than the price tags on the brand’s official website or store.

Can iHerb ship to Malaysia?

Even though it was founded and established in the US, it turns out that iHerb’s customers mostly come from outside the country. Currently, this company has served delivery to more than 185 countries around the world, including our country, Malaysia.

All orders will be shipped from warehouses in the US to Malaysia via air freight. Currently, there are two options for shipping to our country: DHL and SkyNet.

Of the two delivery services, Skynet is the most chosen on the iHerb platform. One of the reasons why their service is quite popular is because iHerb offers free shipping to Malaysia when you choose Skynet. To get this offer you have to spend a minimum of $40 or around RM166.

Other conditions that make your order eligible for free shipping with Skynet are order value is not more than $115 (RM477) and the total weight of the order is not more than 10kg.

You can view the estimated delivery date during checkout. However, based on the experience of some people, their orders will arrive a few days earlier than the estimate given. However, the possibility of delays still exists due to unavoidable things such as air freight delay, Customs hold, or any other difficulties outside of iHerb’s control.

iHerb Duties and Taxes in Malaysia

As we know, internationally shipped packages may be subject to customs and import fees. The exact amount of these fees are determined by Malaysia custom regulations.

Under existing regulations in our country, your order would be subject to Goods and Services Tax (6%) if your order value approaches or exceeds RM500, around $120 when converted to USD.

Due to this, many customers refrain from ordering greater than RM500. They will re-ordering again a few days later if they need more products as they don’t have to pay a shipping fee, especially if they use a Skynet carrier.