[Peaked_18]

Hey everybody! On these forums, I constantly see GNC being bashed hard, and with good reason...Their products are overpriced BY FAR, their employees tend to know nothing, and most of their employees tend to have pretty average builds. The place isn't a true home-base for bodybuilders.
But... If you can get over the fact that the employees usually aren't that awesome, there are some great ways to save a LOT of money at GNC and actually get your supplements for cheaper than anywhere else (including this site and BN.com).

First of all, go ahead, buy the 15 dollar gold card, it will be worth it. That card gets you 20% off all products for the first week of each month. Now, as soon as you have that card, insist on 20% off every time you go and they will always give it to you (be it the first week of the month or not!).

Now, start bargaining like this: Go to your favorite supplement site, find the product you want for cheap, bring a printout to GNC and ask them to match this. They will. Then ask for 20% off on top of that. They will!

Last but not least, when it comes to GNC brand products (a few are good, try the whey), check the dates on the bottles.
If they expire within 8 months --- you get 20 percent off.
If they expire within 5 months --- you get 50 percent off.
If they expire within 3 months --- you get 70 percent off!!!

And then the 20% on top of that.

When it comes down to it, if you follow these instructions, you save on shipping, and get quite a few dollars off of the base price of these products!

Don't hate, participate!


P.S. With the expiration dates and %'s off, the %'s off are correct, but the months may be wrong. It may be more like 10 months, 6 months, 2 months. You'll have to ask your local gnc people. K peace!

That is some cool shit

[jkeithc82]

As far as retail goes

Vitamin World > GNC

[Peaked_18]

Originally Posted by jkeithc82

As far as retail goes

Vitamin World > GNC

We got one of them, do they do price matching?

[Brent]

I know a guy that works at GNC and he barely gave me a discount. The other lady that works there talks on the phone all the time, so it isn't worth my time to enter that place.

[jkeithc82]

Originally Posted by Peaked_18

We got one of them, do they do price matching?

Yep, and even price match online.

First Monday and Tuesday of every month, buy 1 get one free or 30% off on name brands. The membership card is also free and never expires.

(Shameless plug for NBTY and Vitamin World. I worked there for 3 years through college and will always be somewhat partial to them).

[Pioneer]

"try the whey"

um.. that was the most disgusting whey protein I have ever tasted in my life. never again will i bare the brunt of such a horrid taste. i rather put down CEE powder.

as for GNC stores, they rarely have what i want there in terms of companies and products so for convience and also price (gas to get to GNC ect) id rather just order online and walk a few yards to pick up the package.

[Peaked_18]

Originally Posted by jkeithc82

Yep, and even price match online.

First Monday and Tuesday of every month, buy 1 get one free or 30% off on name brands. The membership card is also free and never expires.

(Shameless plug for NBTY and Vitamin World. I worked there for 3 years through college and will always be somewhat partial to them).

Here you got to buy over $22 or something around that to sign up for the card.

Thanks for the information.

[jkeithc82]

Originally Posted by Peaked_18

Here you got to buy over $22 or something around that to sign up for the card.

Thanks for the information.

That's just the qualifying first purchase. One time only thing.

[Peaked_18]

Originally Posted by jkeithc82

That's just the qualifying first purchase. One time only thing.

Alright, do they carry any PrimaForce or SciVation products?

Possibly phone them up here in Morgantown and ask if they'll sell your products?

[Trick D]

yeah that is a great thing about vitamin world is that they do price match, you have to print off the site and date and shit to get it to work. but that is worth it...

[Ikaika]

Originally Posted by Peaked_18

Their products are overpriced BY FAR, their employees tend to know nothing, and most of their employees tend to have pretty average builds. The place isn't a true home-base for bodybuilders.
But... If you can get over the fact that the employees usually aren't that awesome, there are some great ways to save a LOT of money at GNC and actually get your supplements for cheaper than anywhere else (including this site and BN.com).

First of all, go ahead, buy the 15 dollar gold card, it will be worth it. That card gets you 20% off all products for the first week of each month. Now, as soon as you have that card, insist on 20% off every time you go and they will always give it to you (be it the first week of the month or not!).

Now, start bargaining like this: Go to your favorite supplement site, find the product you want for cheap, bring a printout to GNC and ask them to match this. They will. Then ask for 20% off on top of that. They will!

Last but not least, when it comes to GNC brand products (a few are good, try the whey), check the dates on the bottles.
If they expire within 8 months --- you get 20 percent off.
If they expire within 5 months --- you get 50 percent off.
If they expire within 3 months --- you get 70 percent off!!!

And then the 20% on top of that.

When it comes down to it, if you follow these instructions, you save on shipping, and get quite a few dollars off of the base price of these products!

Don't hate, participate!


P.S. With the expiration dates and %'s off, the %'s off are correct, but the months may be wrong. It may be more like 10 months, 6 months, 2 months. You'll have to ask your local gnc people. K peace!

That is some cool shit

Peaked did you write that up or is that copy/pasted? Since I work at GNC, let me clear up a few things.

First of all, insisting on the 20% discount is NOT the way to get it. Employees can get in trouble if management finds out that they are doing this; the only time discounts are to be given are when multivitamins are being sold. Exceptions have to be reviewed by the manager, and an employee giving discounts left and right will get in deep shit. If you just walk in and insist on getting the discount, you probably won't get the discount simply due to the employee not wanting to get their ass in a sling.

If you're nice and talk to the employee a little bit, they are much more likely to give you the discount. Saying things like "I missed Gold Card week because I was (insert excuse here), can you give me the discount on this because I always buy it here?" works really well.

As far as the price matching is concerned, GNC doesn't do it. Unless there has been a change in the last two days since I was at work, GNC doesn't price match. There is absolutely no way they could do that and remain profitable. ON 100% Whey sells for $50 for a 5 lb container there, and online you can get it for $25...I don't know why people would even bother coming to GNC, but they do anyway. I'll double check this with my manager tomorrow to make absolutely sure.

As for the expiring products, it depends if they are a food/drink/bar or a pill. For foods(this includes protein powder) the discount curve is even steeper than the one you posted, and for pills and such that seems to be right on. I can check the next time I go in, but its close. Stores are generally REALLY antsy to get rid of their soon-to-be-expired products, so ask the person working where their close dated stuff is and they'll gladly show you.

On a completely different note, GNC employees are paid minimum wage plus comission on certain stuff...for people to expect them to understand the science behind certain supplements or for them to be bodybuilders is ridiculous. Furthermore, 99% of the people who come into the store don't give two shits about HOW something makes them bigger, they just want to get bigger. Even if they do want to know, most of them don't understand what you tell them anyway. Retail sales is the most mind-numbing work I've ever had to do, and working in GNC is just like working in any other store at the mall: if you can move product, you can work there.

[builtbeast]

Originally Posted by jkeithc82

As far as retail goes

Vitamin World > GNC

As far as retail goes

Vitamin Shoppe > GNC



They have a free membership card as well and give you a voucher at the end of the year depending on how much you spent.

Each month they have various specials, one month 5 lb of ON whey was $26. For the month of July you can buy 20 lbs of whey for $66, although it's a lesser brand.

[jkeithc82]

Originally Posted by builtbeast

As far as retail goes

Vitamin Shoppe > GNC



They have a free membership card as well and give you a voucher at the end of the year depending on how much you spent.

Each month they have various specials, one month 5 lb of ON whey was $26. For the month of July you can buy 20 lbs of whey for $66, although it's a lesser brand.

Vitamin World gives you that same voucher, only its at the end of every quarter, not year.

Various specials also at VW. For an entire quarter, Muscle Milk was at 50% everyday, NO Xplode as well.

The only drawback to VW (and this will also answer Peaked's post from before) is the amount of product they carry (which is not nearly as much as Vitamin Shoppe).

[Peaked_18]

Some other guy wrote it. I posted it here for discussion.

[mr_min]

very interesting read...thanks.

[Psychoholic]

There is a local place called 'Nutrition Depot' that has pretty good prices and a really knowledgable staff. They actually have local bodybuilding mags and the guy that was helping me and I spent about 20 minutes talking about the '05 Olympia turn out. Just that alone makes me want to go back and buy more shit. I will gladly where I know the people give a damn and are up on the bodybuilding world.

Chris

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Psychoholic

There is a local place called 'Nutrition Depot' that has pretty good prices and a really knowledgable staff. They actually have local bodybuilding mags and the guy that was helping me and I spent about 20 minutes talking about the '05 Olympia turn out. Just that alone makes me want to go back and buy more shit. I will gladly where I know the people give a damn and are up on the bodybuilding world.

Chris

Really wish I had a local place like that. I try to support local businesses when I can. Supplements have been ordered online since day one though.

[Psychoholic]

Where are you?