How to check a vendor before you buy

Plenty of websites sell peptides, and many look alike. A few minutes of checking tells you a lot about who you're dealing with. It comes down to three things: find the business, open the report, check the date.

One thing first. Many peptides aren't approved by the TGA for human use, and no check on a vendor changes that. These steps tell you about a business and its paperwork, not whether a product is safe, effective or legal to use.

Find the business

A real business is easy to find. Look for:

• A business name and an ABN. You can look up an ABN on the government's ABN Lookup website and check that the name matches.
• Contact details beyond a web form, like an email address, phone number or postal address.
• Clear policies for shipping, returns and refunds, including where orders ship from.
• A track record outside its own site, like discussion on independent forums. Reviews on a vendor's own site are easy to curate.

Be wary if the only ways to pay are hard to reverse, like crypto or gift cards.

Our Find a vendor page is a starting point. A listing isn't an endorsement, so run these checks on any vendor you find there too.

Open the report

A vendor that tests its products should publish a lab report, called a COA (certificate of analysis), for each one. Open it, rather than taking "lab tested" on trust.

• Is the lab named, and can you find its website yourself?
• Does it show both a purity test (HPLC) and an identity test (mass spec)?
• Does the batch number match the product you're looking at?
• Is there a verification code you can check on the lab's own website?

Our guide to reading a COA walks through each line, and the COA checker gives you a quick list to work through.

Check the date

Every report has a test date. Look at it closely.

• Old reports may not cover today's stock. Batches sell out, and an old report may describe a product that's long gone.
• The batch should match. A recent report for a different batch tells you less than it seems.
• Watch for one report used everywhere. The same COA on several sellers' sites may be a supplier's report, not one for each seller's own stock.
• Ask when in doubt. A good vendor can tell you which batch you'll receive and share its report.

Red flags

• Medical claims, or instructions for use in people, on a product labelled "research use only".
• Blurred verification codes, or reports you can only see after you buy.
• Countdown timers, "last few left" banners and other pressure to buy now.
• Prices far below everyone else's, with no clear reason.

The short version

• Find the business: a name, an ABN, real contact details and clear policies.
• Open the report: a named lab, purity and identity tests, a matching batch and a code you can verify.
• Check the date: recent, matching the batch, and not copied across sellers.
• None of this makes a product safe or approved. It just tells you more about who you're buying from.

Related: Find a vendor · How to read a COA · COA checker