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Orgain was created by a cancer survivor because he couldn't find clean protein shakes on the market.
He created his own company with all clean and organic ingredients, natural sugars, and using a wide variety of vegetables and fruits.
But sometime around mid 2022, he sold a majority of the company stake to Nestle, of all companies.
Here's one of the articles about it: Nestlé to buy majority stake in protein powder maker OrgainThe deal accelerates the CPG giant's push to grow its health and wellness business while selling parts of its slower-growing food and beverages.
I noticed a change in taste right away, but since the owner had improved the formula two other times over the years, I figured he did it again.
Nope.
The goal of Nestle is to make as much money as possible while not giving a shit about the human cost or what they do to the environment. I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure they were behind the changes to Orgain powder.
Now there are several unhealthy sugar substitutes in it, almost none of the vegetables they used to have, and they no longer list the ingredients as clean sourced.
I was thrilled to find Orgain years ago because multiple family members have cancer, but for well over a year I was feeding them this new formula because I didn't realize what happened to the company.
If you use this product, check the ingredients again just to make sure you're still comfortable with what's in it.
Part of the agreement in 2022 included the option to acquire the rest of the company in 2024, so if you use Orgain, keep an eye on the ingredient list since it will most likely change again this year once Nestle fully owns the company.
shopify pinwheelpay and crying
Jul. 28th, 2021 09:37 amI’m an extremely patient and tenacious person. I don’t mind putting in a lot of hard work, even if it’s tedious and neverending.
But POS systems, banks, and payment processors are wearing me down to the point where, after reading an email from one of them today, I actually broke down and cried. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, I really don’t cry often or easily.
It takes A LOT to push me.
I’ve spent the last three and a half years trying to set up a POS system and online store system that work with each other, are convenient for my customers and my family (who work with me at the shop but aren’t tech savvy), and that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The old system from Intuit worked great and could handle all the in-store stuff we needed, but Intuit is stuck in the dark ages and only in the last year have started to offer contactless payments, and they have no online store options, no way of connecting their system to any online stores either.
So I’ve made workarounds.
It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of patience, and I’ve been doing this while also running the business.
I’ve recreated our entire inventory system three times for POS systems and four times for online store systems in the last 3 years. This isn’t a small job, and each system didn’t support the other for proprietary reasons, so no easy way to transfer thousands of products.
The workaround I’ve come up with is to use Intuit POS in the store, Shopify online store, Wegbility to do a really shitty job of syncing online purchases and inventory with Intuit (it’s $100 a month and I can’t let it do anything automatically because it sucks so bad), and until recently I’ve used Shopify’s payment processors.
In my original post above, I complain about how a few weeks ago Shopify informed me they don’t like the fact I’m selling C/B/D and lid/ocaine products because it’s “high risk.” So they suggested several third party payment processors.
I did my research and went with a place called PinwheelPay, which charges way more than a regular payment processor, but I had no choice because Shopify was going to cut off my credit card processing in 6 days.
A few days ago PinwheelPay informed me they don’t like that I sell tattoo needles.
Even though when I first talked to them on the phone I told them I sell tattoo, piercing, and medical supplies along with body jewelry, and topical C/B/D and lido/caine products. I don’t sell injectables or ingestables, but they still call the tattoo needles injectables.
I emailed them yesterday to ask for some time to change my online store to comply with their demands, but today they emailed me and said no, they would be cutting me off immediately.
A few weeks ago I made a second online store. It’s expensive between monthly fees and everything, but I need to be able to sell all my products. It’s going to be a joke to have customers use two sites, but what else can I do?
But the site hasn’t had enough time to get an established SEO status. It’s only a few weeks old. It need at least 3 months.
So if I don’t do anything, my customers can’t buy anything online. If I take down my needles, they can buy the creams and that’s it, and I lose out on the majority of what I sell online. If I take down the creams, I’m losing out on $12k-$20k in cream sales a month.
The stupidest part of this whole thing is that Shopify doesn’t give a shit about the needles or medical supplies.
It’s the “high risk” payment processor that doesn’t like them! They’ll let me sell the creams, but heaven forbid I sell needles and medical supplies!
If I take down the creams, I can go back to Shopify payments, but I lose out on about $20k in sales a month from the creams until the new site gets better SEO status, which will end up being 3 or more months, so that’s at least $60k.
It’s probably going to slow down sales even after that because my established site has been there for years and is very popular. Sites under 1 year old don’t inspire confidence in customers.
I’m so frustrated and tired of everyone and everything working against me, everything being hard, and no one actually listening and telling me what I need to know even when I ask detailed questions.
I’m tired of places saying they can help me because they want my business but ultimately not listening to what I actually need and dumping me after I’ve put in days, weeks, months of work for absolutely nothing.
And I’m so fucking tired of big business getting away with whatever they want while small and medium business owners have to put up with this utter bullshit that slowly breaks us.
A great-sounding solution would be to sell, right? Yeah, but I can’t sell a business that doesn’t have a working payment system. I have to fix this before I sell or do anything else.
But POS systems, banks, and payment processors are wearing me down to the point where, after reading an email from one of them today, I actually broke down and cried. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, I really don’t cry often or easily.
It takes A LOT to push me.
I’ve spent the last three and a half years trying to set up a POS system and online store system that work with each other, are convenient for my customers and my family (who work with me at the shop but aren’t tech savvy), and that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The old system from Intuit worked great and could handle all the in-store stuff we needed, but Intuit is stuck in the dark ages and only in the last year have started to offer contactless payments, and they have no online store options, no way of connecting their system to any online stores either.
So I’ve made workarounds.
It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of patience, and I’ve been doing this while also running the business.
I’ve recreated our entire inventory system three times for POS systems and four times for online store systems in the last 3 years. This isn’t a small job, and each system didn’t support the other for proprietary reasons, so no easy way to transfer thousands of products.
The workaround I’ve come up with is to use Intuit POS in the store, Shopify online store, Wegbility to do a really shitty job of syncing online purchases and inventory with Intuit (it’s $100 a month and I can’t let it do anything automatically because it sucks so bad), and until recently I’ve used Shopify’s payment processors.
In my original post above, I complain about how a few weeks ago Shopify informed me they don’t like the fact I’m selling C/B/D and lid/ocaine products because it’s “high risk.” So they suggested several third party payment processors.
I did my research and went with a place called PinwheelPay, which charges way more than a regular payment processor, but I had no choice because Shopify was going to cut off my credit card processing in 6 days.
A few days ago PinwheelPay informed me they don’t like that I sell tattoo needles.
Even though when I first talked to them on the phone I told them I sell tattoo, piercing, and medical supplies along with body jewelry, and topical C/B/D and lido/caine products. I don’t sell injectables or ingestables, but they still call the tattoo needles injectables.
I emailed them yesterday to ask for some time to change my online store to comply with their demands, but today they emailed me and said no, they would be cutting me off immediately.
A few weeks ago I made a second online store. It’s expensive between monthly fees and everything, but I need to be able to sell all my products. It’s going to be a joke to have customers use two sites, but what else can I do?
But the site hasn’t had enough time to get an established SEO status. It’s only a few weeks old. It need at least 3 months.
So if I don’t do anything, my customers can’t buy anything online. If I take down my needles, they can buy the creams and that’s it, and I lose out on the majority of what I sell online. If I take down the creams, I’m losing out on $12k-$20k in cream sales a month.
The stupidest part of this whole thing is that Shopify doesn’t give a shit about the needles or medical supplies.
It’s the “high risk” payment processor that doesn’t like them! They’ll let me sell the creams, but heaven forbid I sell needles and medical supplies!
If I take down the creams, I can go back to Shopify payments, but I lose out on about $20k in sales a month from the creams until the new site gets better SEO status, which will end up being 3 or more months, so that’s at least $60k.
It’s probably going to slow down sales even after that because my established site has been there for years and is very popular. Sites under 1 year old don’t inspire confidence in customers.
I’m so frustrated and tired of everyone and everything working against me, everything being hard, and no one actually listening and telling me what I need to know even when I ask detailed questions.
I’m tired of places saying they can help me because they want my business but ultimately not listening to what I actually need and dumping me after I’ve put in days, weeks, months of work for absolutely nothing.
And I’m so fucking tired of big business getting away with whatever they want while small and medium business owners have to put up with this utter bullshit that slowly breaks us.
A great-sounding solution would be to sell, right? Yeah, but I can’t sell a business that doesn’t have a working payment system. I have to fix this before I sell or do anything else.
create the ILLUSION of a problem
Jul. 15th, 2021 04:12 pmAlmost everyone has heard of creating a problem and then charging money for the solution to that problem.
But lemme tell you about an even sneakier thing!
Creating the ILLUSION of a problem and then charging money for the solution to that illusion.
I own a business that sells products locally, and we also have an online store. Despite the industry we sell to (tattoo and piercing artists), our customers either pay cash or have surprisingly good credit, meaning even though we pay a high percentage for credit card transactions when we first sign up with a credit card processing company, they always quickly lower it because we’re so low-risk they want to reward us for staying with them.
Square lowered our rate three times in the first year we used them and promised to lower it again the next year. Customers with good credit AND I’m very careful about checking for fraud with every purchase that goes through my online store, and I flag anything I’m suspicious about. Only one fraud transaction slipped by me in 1-1/2 years.
So Square lowered our rate three times, but that was right before they dropped us after labeling us as being high-risk because of our products, namely topical pain relievers with lido/caine and C/B/D. Nothing ingestable.
Shopify gladly processed credit cards for us for over 2 years, lowering our rate twice until they decided to pay more attention to what we were selling.
They recently informed us we needed a third party high-risk management company to assist us, and we needed to do this within 7 days or they would pull our products from our online store. Not only that, they also started to hold our money.
I’ve dealt with merchant accounts for years. I know how they play. I know how they try to nickle and dime small and medium business owners to death. And I also know how much risk is involved for a credit card processing company.
Which is to say ZERO. NO risk.
Even if I were to sell g/uns, ill/egal substances, or even bo/dy par/ts, the credit card processor goes into it with no legal risk whatsoever because they only provide a service. You sign documents when you first create an account with them that says this, and I’ve looked into it to verify. No one can touch them.
Yet C/B/D, h/emp, lido/caine, g/uns, medical supplies, and a ton of other items have been labeled “high risk” by credit card processors, and they refuse to handle it, insisting you MUST run it through a third party.
It’s a huge issue with e/cig, c/b/d/, and ed/ibles online store owners. They’re all very frustrated by this.
The third party charges (in general) 1.9% plus a monthly fee between $5-$299, the credit card company itself charges 1%, and the company that provides your website also charges 1%. That’s standard, though it can fluctuate some depending on the companies you use.
It might not seem like much, but when you’re used to paying a flat 1.4%-1.6% for credit card processing, it’s a smack in the face.
Oh, and you might think this covers chargebacks, fraud, and other issues, but it doesn’t.
As a business owner, you’re still responsible for those things yourself, and with no questions asked and no appeal process, that money can be taken directly from your bank account at any time. There’s no such thing as insurance for stuff like this.
It also doesn’t cover cash back awards. Credit card companies split those with us as a business 50/50.
So if you want to support your local businesses, please don’t use reward cards when shopping there. Use it at Wal/mart -- they can afford it. If possible, use cash for local businesses. Even G/oogle Pay and A/pple Pay ding us!
Back to the subject: With no risk for the credit card companies no matter what I sell, they still label us as high risk because of the products, so they’ve created the illusion of a problem.
BUUUUUT they’ve also charged money for the solution!
And that’s not all.
I recently went through the whole process of signing up with a third party so I could continue to sell on Shopify. By the time I was done reading all the fine print, I realized Authorize.net owned the third party company.
Authorize.net is what Shopify uses as their credit card processing company, as many businesses online do.
My credit card processing is still going through the SAME company as before, but now I’m paying a much higher percentage.
There’s nothing any of us can do about it. A lot of shop owners have complained and tried to work around it, but there’s nothing we can do.
Major credit card companies and banks have decided this high risk thing is a thing and we NEED third party processing to be able to sell our products.
It’s yet another way to screw over small and medium business while big businesses STILL get away with tax breaks they don’t deserve, loopholes, and lots of other things we have no hope of taking advantage of.
BTW if anyone reading this sees a mistake or misunderstanding on my part or knows of a way around this, PLEASE message me!!
But lemme tell you about an even sneakier thing!
Creating the ILLUSION of a problem and then charging money for the solution to that illusion.
I own a business that sells products locally, and we also have an online store. Despite the industry we sell to (tattoo and piercing artists), our customers either pay cash or have surprisingly good credit, meaning even though we pay a high percentage for credit card transactions when we first sign up with a credit card processing company, they always quickly lower it because we’re so low-risk they want to reward us for staying with them.
Square lowered our rate three times in the first year we used them and promised to lower it again the next year. Customers with good credit AND I’m very careful about checking for fraud with every purchase that goes through my online store, and I flag anything I’m suspicious about. Only one fraud transaction slipped by me in 1-1/2 years.
So Square lowered our rate three times, but that was right before they dropped us after labeling us as being high-risk because of our products, namely topical pain relievers with lido/caine and C/B/D. Nothing ingestable.
Shopify gladly processed credit cards for us for over 2 years, lowering our rate twice until they decided to pay more attention to what we were selling.
They recently informed us we needed a third party high-risk management company to assist us, and we needed to do this within 7 days or they would pull our products from our online store. Not only that, they also started to hold our money.
I’ve dealt with merchant accounts for years. I know how they play. I know how they try to nickle and dime small and medium business owners to death. And I also know how much risk is involved for a credit card processing company.
Which is to say ZERO. NO risk.
Even if I were to sell g/uns, ill/egal substances, or even bo/dy par/ts, the credit card processor goes into it with no legal risk whatsoever because they only provide a service. You sign documents when you first create an account with them that says this, and I’ve looked into it to verify. No one can touch them.
Yet C/B/D, h/emp, lido/caine, g/uns, medical supplies, and a ton of other items have been labeled “high risk” by credit card processors, and they refuse to handle it, insisting you MUST run it through a third party.
It’s a huge issue with e/cig, c/b/d/, and ed/ibles online store owners. They’re all very frustrated by this.
The third party charges (in general) 1.9% plus a monthly fee between $5-$299, the credit card company itself charges 1%, and the company that provides your website also charges 1%. That’s standard, though it can fluctuate some depending on the companies you use.
It might not seem like much, but when you’re used to paying a flat 1.4%-1.6% for credit card processing, it’s a smack in the face.
Oh, and you might think this covers chargebacks, fraud, and other issues, but it doesn’t.
As a business owner, you’re still responsible for those things yourself, and with no questions asked and no appeal process, that money can be taken directly from your bank account at any time. There’s no such thing as insurance for stuff like this.
It also doesn’t cover cash back awards. Credit card companies split those with us as a business 50/50.
So if you want to support your local businesses, please don’t use reward cards when shopping there. Use it at Wal/mart -- they can afford it. If possible, use cash for local businesses. Even G/oogle Pay and A/pple Pay ding us!
Back to the subject: With no risk for the credit card companies no matter what I sell, they still label us as high risk because of the products, so they’ve created the illusion of a problem.
BUUUUUT they’ve also charged money for the solution!
And that’s not all.
I recently went through the whole process of signing up with a third party so I could continue to sell on Shopify. By the time I was done reading all the fine print, I realized Authorize.net owned the third party company.
Authorize.net is what Shopify uses as their credit card processing company, as many businesses online do.
My credit card processing is still going through the SAME company as before, but now I’m paying a much higher percentage.
There’s nothing any of us can do about it. A lot of shop owners have complained and tried to work around it, but there’s nothing we can do.
Major credit card companies and banks have decided this high risk thing is a thing and we NEED third party processing to be able to sell our products.
It’s yet another way to screw over small and medium business while big businesses STILL get away with tax breaks they don’t deserve, loopholes, and lots of other things we have no hope of taking advantage of.
BTW if anyone reading this sees a mistake or misunderstanding on my part or knows of a way around this, PLEASE message me!!
"we don't price gouge!"
Oct. 22nd, 2020 08:52 amI don’t really have the money to be keeping an eye sales, but I keep thinking magically the Nintendo Switch and maybe a game or two will be on like a ridiculous sale before, during, or after the holidays and I can splurge on myself.
I’ve been watching prices at several places, and noticed that the whole “we don’t price gouge” thing is of course a joke and the whole honesty in marketing thing is a lie. Big surprise right?
Before Prime Day, Nintendo Switch was $299 and the games were $50-$69. This wasn’t just on Amazon, BTW.
During Prime Day it went to $380-$430 with the games between $69-$89.
AFTER Prime Day it went to $489 with the games between $50-$89.
So I started looking at other items that were considered Prime Day Flash Buys and other specials like that at other stores.
I’m the weirdo who remembers numbers. It helps me in my business. I can easily compare prices between different product sources because numbers + products they’re attached to just stick in my head and stay there for long periods of time.
And I noticed that almost everything considered a special was actually more expensive than it was before the sale.
There were also a lot of knockoffs being sold at a little less than the legit item’s price but still more than the knockoffs are usually sold at.
I read that Prime Day was the biggest success ever and other stores like Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, etc. had their best event sales ever too.
Big business out there helping people during the pan/de/mic. It’s nice to know they have your back.
I’ve been watching prices at several places, and noticed that the whole “we don’t price gouge” thing is of course a joke and the whole honesty in marketing thing is a lie. Big surprise right?
Before Prime Day, Nintendo Switch was $299 and the games were $50-$69. This wasn’t just on Amazon, BTW.
During Prime Day it went to $380-$430 with the games between $69-$89.
AFTER Prime Day it went to $489 with the games between $50-$89.
So I started looking at other items that were considered Prime Day Flash Buys and other specials like that at other stores.
I’m the weirdo who remembers numbers. It helps me in my business. I can easily compare prices between different product sources because numbers + products they’re attached to just stick in my head and stay there for long periods of time.
And I noticed that almost everything considered a special was actually more expensive than it was before the sale.
There were also a lot of knockoffs being sold at a little less than the legit item’s price but still more than the knockoffs are usually sold at.
I read that Prime Day was the biggest success ever and other stores like Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, etc. had their best event sales ever too.
Big business out there helping people during the pan/de/mic. It’s nice to know they have your back.
