"My clients are friends from the sports club": how I earn 60 thousand on sports nutrition and dietary supplements from iHerb

How it all started

I have been working with interiors for eight years, as a freelancer. Mainly apartments in Yekaterinburg — comfort class, sometimes business. Usually I have one or two projects running in parallel; I don't like taking on more, as quality suffers. My income is around 150-200 thousand a month, sometimes more in good months. My schedule is flexible: mornings for client and contractor meetings, afternoons for visualizations and approvals, evenings are usually free. This schedule allows me to do five workouts a week at the fitness club.

I chose my fitness club five years ago — it's near my home, premium, with a pool, SPA, thermal complex, and a separate women's area. An annual membership costs about 150 thousand rubles, and the clientele matches: people aged 30-50. At my classes there are mostly women: entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, designers like me. Some have become friends, others acquaintances — we have been going to the same classes for years. During the week I do pilates, vinyasa yoga, barre, swimming, and stretching.

First I bought from iHerb for myself

I have been using iHerb myself since 2018. A nutritionist friend introduced me to it — she explained that Russian supplements and vitamins from pharmacies often do not match the stated dosages on the label. To get a proper amount of magnesium, for example, you sometimes have to take six capsules a day instead of two. This affects the final price — what seems inexpensive becomes unrealistically expensive when calculated per month, and there may also be doubts about quality. With iHerb this is not an issue, because American brands test their compositions through independent laboratories — you can go to the manufacturer's website and see the certificates.

After a month of taking the supplements, I noticed that my joints no longer ached after long hours at the computer, my hair looked better, and my sleep stabilized.

When iHerb stopped shipping to Russia, I googled Prostobox — I liked the prices and reviews, and I continued ordering for myself and my family.

First clients and word of mouth

My sales started after a conversation with acquaintances at the fitness club's phyto-bar. One of the girls complained about buying creatine on a marketplace — she had bought what seemed to be the same product three times, but each time it had a different taste, strange sediments, and unclear effects. "It felt like one jar had just some chalk in it." Others joined in — someone didn't like the magnesium, someone saw no effect from calcium.

I told them I had solved the problem and that I get American vitamins and supplements from iHerb delivered. That same evening I had three clients.

A week later several more gym colleagues wrote to me — word of mouth in women's groups is the best advertising. Gradually they accumulated. The thing is, the ladies from my club don't really have the time or desire to deal with it; they just want to get good vitamins and sports nutrition at good prices, not only for themselves but also for their husbands, children, moms, and dads.

I have never run any advertising. Never started a Telegram channel. Never created an Instagram account for this. Everything is only through personal messages and conversations.

My engine of progress is word of mouth. My clients tell colleagues at work, friends, relatives. I already have a solid reputation — people know for sure that there will be no chalk in the jars I brought; everything is real, effective, and high-quality.

How everything works for me now

I created a Telegram group with my clients. Once a week I remind them that I am collecting an order. Within a couple of days they send their lists — some by text, some send links to products they found themselves on iHerb, some ask to repeat old orders. I combine everything into one order, recalculate based on the current dollar rate, confirm the final amounts, and receive payment to my card. Then I place the order on iHerb to my American address from Prostobox.

Regular vitamins and supplements in jars I pack into boxes up to 1 kg, sports nutrition is heavy — it goes in parcels up to 3 kg. I deliver myself to clients in the city; to those I train with at the club I hand over in the parking lot, because at the gym itself the trainers looked at me sideways and even the administrator approached with comments, although there was really nothing to complain about — no one was paying me money. But fitness clubs often sell similar products themselves, and I am a competitor to them, so such complaints are not surprising and are justified.

How much I earn from iHerb

Steadily around 60 thousand a month.

Sports nutrition makes up the main part of my revenue. Protein, BCAA, creatine, specialized isolates without lactose and without soy sell out quickly; prices on iHerb are at least half of Russian ones where there is anything to compare, and a 50% markup still leaves the client with a favorable price. The main advantage is that on marketplaces

Basic vitamins and supplements provide a stable base. Magnesium, omega-3, vitamin D, zinc, iron, B-complex. The average order is smaller here, but there are more clients, and orders are regular.

The rarest and most profitable items are specialized products: type 2 collagen for joints, hyaluronic acid, MSM, specific manufacturers that are either not available in Russia or not in the required dosage.

What people order from me most often

• Lactose-free whey protein isolateThis is an absolute hit. Women 35+ often have lactose intolerance. In regular Russian stores there are few isolate options and they are expensive. On iHerb the selection is huge — Dymatize ISO100, Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Isolate, MRM, California Gold Nutrition Sport.
• CollagenPeptide, hydrolyzed, marine. Almost everyone orders it. The most popular among my girls are California Gold Nutrition CollagenUP and Sports Research Collagen Peptides.
• Creatine monohydrateAfter that seasonal marketplace fiasco, the girls only take trusted brands — Optimum Nutrition Creatine, Now Foods Creatine Monohydrate, MuscleTech.
• Magnesium for recoveryGlycinate at night, citrate after workouts. No one here goes without it — and here we come back to the story of real dosages in one capsule, not six.
• BCAA and amino acidsEspecially glutamine, arginine, and citrulline — for recovery and improving tone after strength training. EAA from Now Foods, BCAA from Optimum Nutrition.
• Joint supportMSM, glucosamine, chondroitin, hyaluronic acid. After 35, for actively training women this becomes an important topic — they do strength training, but their joints are no longer like at 20.
• Basic vitaminsVitamin D in high dosages of 5000 IU — in Yekaterinburg you can't do without it, omega-3 in triglyceride form, iron in bisglycinate form, B-complex with active forms.

What I would recommend to those who want to start

1. Place one or two orders for yourself first. This way you will understand how delivery works, how long a parcel takes, how weight is calculated, and what consolidation at the American warehouse means. Without this experience you will not be able to properly explain to clients what to expect. I was only able to make my first sale because I had already been using Prostobox myself for a month.
2. Clients are waiting for you everywhere — at work, in the fitness club, friends of colleagues and colleagues of friends. Online platforms like Avito also work great; there is no need to be afraid of them. City forums and notice boards handle it fine — people look for local goods and services there.
3. Don't hesitate to remind clients about yourself, ask them to check if their supply of vitamins has run out. Ideally, of course, remind them when vitamins are running low, but since I don't know how many people in the family are taking them, I just remind them to check if they need to buy anything else.
4. When the flow of orders becomes constant, register as an individual entrepreneur. Self-employment is not suitable for resale — the law does not allow self-employed people to resell someone else's goods. The correct form is an individual entrepreneur on the simplified tax system at 6 percent.

I did not plan to do this. It just happened. Interior design will remain my main job — this is the profession I studied and that I love. And iHerb is a pleasant bonus and a way to help people I see every day anyway.

60 thousand a month is not millions. But they don't lie on the road either. This side job does not require any extra effort from me. It is simply built into my regular life and runs in the background.

To follow Olga's path — start by registering on Prostobox and place your first personal order on iHerb.