Self-Introduction of UniveralDrugstore.com
UniversalDrugstore.com is an online pharmacy that claims to be an international pharmacy that is offering both prescription and non prescription medications. They claim to be in this business for a very long time – since 2002 and in all this time they have already successfully served more than half a million of customers which is quite a big number. They claim to be a trusted and secure international prescription service which is able to give customers the opportunity to save up to 80% on their medicines. So, at this pharmacy customers can buy prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies at discounted prices as they claim and plus they are going to get – lowest price guarantee; 100% satisfaction guarantee; excellent customer service as well as free pharmacist counselling. All of this sounds great. The company is claiming to offer maximum security, privacy and they take it all very serious. Except for being a secure shopping service, they also claim to be legitimate but offering a quality certificate, but we are going to check its validity later. There’s information on the website suggesting that they are having over 15 years of experience supplying prescription and over the counter drugs and that’s great if true as that’s a long time to have trust in this pharmacy. Since they claim to work exclusively only with licensed pharmacy partners and drug manufacturers, all of the medications they are offering are of a high quality and they are safe to use. At least that’s what the information on their website suggests. So all in all, the pharmacy claims to be located in Canada with an address in Toronto, Ontario, they are a pharmacy since 2002 and they are a licensed pharmacy offering high quality drugs for low prices. Hopefully that’s all true but I am going to check it step by step in my review.
Assortment Diversity
In order to check if this online pharmacy is offering a wide selection of drugs I have to check through the categories of medications and right on their main page I have noticed this online pharmacy has categorized the medications in 3 main categories: prescription drugs; over the counter and pet meds.
I clicked on prescription drugs and unfortunately, they do not offer categories by the health condition. Customers can only search for their needed drugs in prescription drugs category by their first letter or by the search function. Other than that, there is no other way to search for medications here.
According to the information on their website, the pharmacy is offering over 590 OTC medications only. We don’t know what’s the number of prescription drugs but we can assume there are a lot of medications. I decided to check a random letter, and if you click on *V* you are going to find a lot of different medications like vagifem, vagisil, valcyte, valdoxan and others, including more famous like Viagra.
But it seems that there are a lot of different medications in each letter that I clicked and for this reason I can assume that the pharmacy is indeed offering a very wide list of medications. I also noticed they are offering brand medications and generic medications.
So customers have the opportunity to purchase branded or generic medications as well as prescription or over the counter medications. I do think that all of this makes this pharmacy deserve a rate of 5 stars for their availability of different medications.
Prices Affordability
This online pharmacy is claiming that they are offering discounted prices for medications, they claim that the prices for medications are so low here that they can help you save up to 80% on medications – that’s really good if that’s true because saving so much money is definitely a good idea.
So, in order to check if this pharmacy is indeed offering so good prices, I am going to check it myself. I am going to talk about the medications that I am most familiar with: ED medications as Viagra. So, I have discovered that if you get the maximum amount of pills of brand Viagra 50 mg then the price per pill would be 9.09 USD per pill for 88 tablets. The price can be up to 11.75 USD per pill if you get only 4 tablets. For the generic alternative to Viagra 50 mg the price is 1.41 USD per tablet if you get maximum quantity of 80 tablets. But it can be up to 2.38 USD per tablet if you get only 8 tablets.
To be honest, if the prices for generic version is just a bit overestimated – the price for the brand medication is extremely high. I have seen much better prices at other online pharmacies were brand Viagra could be obtained for around 3 USD per pill and generic version for less than 1 USD per pill. I also wanted to check Cialis. The price for Cialis is overall much more expensive. The price for brand 20 mg is between 17.50 USD to 15.60 USD depending how many pills you get and the price for generic 20 mg is between 4.50 USD and 3.31 USD per pill. To be honest, the price is very overestimated for both versions.
The last medication that I am going to check is Levitra. The price for brand is pretty much the same as for brand Cialis – quite overestimated, but the price for generic is the worst – anywhere between 9.50 USD per pill and 7.63 USD per pill of generic form.
I doubt that this online pharmacy deserves anything more than 3 points for the price affordability. People can save a bit of money on Viagra generic and a bit on branded forms for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. But they can’t really save on generic Cialis or Levitra. Make sure what you buy is actually worth the price.
Shipping Options
According to the information on their website, this pharmacy does offer international shipping. They claim that they are also offering free shipping on orders that are over 100 USD to destinations within Canada and USA including Alaska and Hawaii. However, the shipping charge is 7 USD for orders under 100 USD in Canada and USA but for international shipping (outside Canada and USA) the shipping charge is 19.95 USD. I could not find any information at all suggesting they are offering multiple shipping options. Going on the checkout page I wasn’t given an option to change the shipping method.
Plus to that, as much as you can see, they claim that the average delivery time for shipping outside the USA and Canada is 4 to 6 weeks which is a lot. The delivery in Canada and USA, as much as I can assume, should be faster. However, they do not guarantee the delivery is going to be in this time because they claim that there may be customs delays which they can’t control.
All in all, I do not love the shipping terms at this pharmacy, to be honest. They do not offer overnight shipping option, they do not offer free shipping to everyone – only to USA and Canada customers and plus to that, the shipping fees and the delivery times are too high without faster or multiple shipping options. For all these reasons, I am going to rate this unit with 2 stars only.
Payment Options
There is information on their FAQ page suggesting that this online pharmacy is accepting credit cards, checks as well as international money orders. They claim that they are accepting postal money orders but they must be international type. They claim to accept a new form of payment called echecks. That’s all super good. The pharmacy seem to offer a lot of different payment methods and I doubt that there is going to be someone who won’t be happy with the payment methods offered by this pharmacy since there are so many different forms of payment. My rate for such a variety of payment methods is 5 stars.
Technical Characteristics of the Website
Checking Website Loading Speed
The technical characteristics are very important to be taken in consideration when choosing a preferred online pharmacy. That’s because a lot of customers may not want to order from an online pharmacy that has slow page loading speed or other technical issues. I used the google page speed test and I discovered that the mobile version of this website has extremely big issues. It is red marked meaning it has a slow page speed rated with only 10 points out of 100. The desktop version is much better – 90 scored out of 100 and it is green marked all of which indicates it has fast page speed data for desktop version.
All in all, this pharmacy has big issues with mobile version but they don’t seem to have any with the desktop version. Because of this, my rate is going to be 3 stars here.
Mobile Version
I decided to check the mobile version of this website on the mobile friendly test offered by google developers and there I found out that this pharmacy is having a mobile version of their website. The text is easily readable, the clickable elements are far enough from each other, the images are not too small or not too large and the site generally seem to be optimized for a mobile device.
All of this has been proved when I checked it from my own smartphone. But as we expected, the site does seem to have page loading issues when browsing through the mobile version. This is very inconvenient for mobile users and that’s why I can’t rate this unit with more than 4 stars.
Secure Connection
This online pharmacy UniversalDrugstore.com does seem to use a secure connection on their website and that’s a really big plus to my opinion. You can check it yourself – there’s a green lock near the address bar which indicates the connection is secure. That’s very good. However, the site is only using a low security level of 128 bit SSL encryption. That’s a low security level compared to the 256 bit SSL encryption. Another problem is the fact that this online pharmacy is not sharing company owner information I find these to be big problems because they don’t offer complete transparency. All in all, I think they deserve a rate of 3 stars for this unit.
Antivirus Protection
While I was searching for information if this site does use any protection against internet viruses, I did have noticed there is an icon on the site suggesting they are having Norton Antivirus installed. Luckily, the icon was clickable and the following message was given:
So, from as much as we can see, universaldrugstore.com is an online pharmacy protected from viruses by Norton since June 2018. This makes the pharmacy be a secure place to order medications online and for this reason I am going to rate them with 5 stars.
How to Order from UniversalDrugstore.com?
For ordering here, customers should start searching for their needed medications, of course. You can find the search function or the search through the first letter of the drugs and when you find your needed drug, click on it. After you’ve done it, you should select the dosage of the medication and after that you can see the choices for that medication in terms of brand or generic. After you select the quantity of pills you want to purchase click on *add to cart*. this is going to redirect you to the shopping cart you can review the total amount of money you need to pay and then proceed to checkout.
I have discovered here a big problem – for ordering customers need to register. Without registering you cannot order. I honestly think that’s a big problem.
After you register and sign in to your account, you have other steps to undergo for completing the order – personal information > shipping information > payment information and > order confirmation.
There’s a *how to order* page and it indicates that ordering online requires 4 steps but the checkout page consists in 5 steps process. But customers can also order here by phone or by fax or mail. All in all, the ordering convenience gets a rate of 3 stars since it is not the easiest and fastest to order here, especially because of the registration.
Is Universal Drugstore Legitimate?
Checking UniversalDrugstore.com Rating via ScamAdviser.com
I wanted to check the information about this pharmacy on scamadviser.com because that’s a site that often helped us determining a lot of useful information about online pharmacies. according to scamadviser.com, this site has been threat listed with a trust rate of 83% and they recommend to use care if you want to use this site. they may be from USA but also from Barbados, however, there’s no mention about Canada – the country this pharmacy claims to operate from. In addition to that, a lot of important information like owner, address, organization etc. is hidden.
I can’t rate this scamadviser.com review with more than 3 stars.
Prescription Request
As I earlier mentioned, this online pharmacy is offering medications in prescription category or OTC category of medications. With this being said, this pharmacy is asking for a valid prescription obtained from a licensed physician, just like any ordinary drugstore would. All the drugs are having a sign indicating if this pharmacy requires a valid prescription for them or not. customers can mail their prescriptions, fax them, email or upload them on the site. pharmacy can contact your doctor as well.
With this being said, the pharmacy receives a rate of 5 stars because they seem to have a serious approach over selling prescription drugs.
Checking Legitimacy of Universal Drugstore using Legit Script
According to the information that I managed to find on legitscript.com this online pharmacy is unapproved internet pharmacy. They do not say this pharmacy is a criminal drugstore giving the approval status of rogue but unapproved. They do not violate the laws and rights of customers. Yet, since it is not approved, my rate is 2 stars.
Quality Certificate
I earlier mentioned that there’s an icon on their website suggesting that this online pharmacy is CIPA approved pharmacy. The icon is clickable. There’s information suggesting that universaldrugstore.com is an active CIPA member.
My rate for this unit is 5 stars.
Universaldrugstore.com Reviews
Customer On-Site Reviews
I was searching for customer reviews and I did found customer reviews on their own website. it is obvious I wanted to check them. Strange fact is that absolutely all the reviews on their own website are all 5 stars rated. In fact, that’s not strange since I see the reviews on their own website and it is expected there are no negative reviews. That’s just suspicious. The reviews does seem to be fresh and they are all positive. There seem to be a total of 12 different reviews. They are all unique.
My rate for all of this is 4 stars because I can’t have full trust in those reviews – they seem too strange to my opinion.
Universaldrugstore.com Reviews on Independent Websites
While I was searching for customer reviews on independent websites, I was expecting to find much more reviews since the site seem to be online serving customers for such a long time and since they claimed to have so many customers. Unfortunately, I didn’t found too many. The big problem is that most of them seem to be negative, for example, I read such a review:
However, as much as you can see, the review was written back in 2016. I found review from 2011- 2012 but there are also newer reviews – but only a few of them and they are also negative. All in all, the customer reviews are not very much – most of them are outdated and most of them are negative. I can’t highly rate this unit because of all these problems. My rate is 2 stars.
Universaldrugstore.com Coupon Codes
I earlier mentioned in my review there are 2 different ways to save money: you can either save by purchasing more than 100 USD here and you get free shipping (but that’s only if you live in Canada or USA) or you could get higher quantity of pills and so you receive a cheaper price per pills. But unfortunately, I was not able to find anything else other than these. I was searching for coupon codes, other forms of discounts or at least anything at all that could attract customers – no avail. Unfortunately, this unit is going to receive 1 point because the price drop purchasing in bulk isn’t very attractive and free shipping can get only USA and Canada residents.
Customer Support Service
Contact Information of the Pharmacy
I started to search for the contact information on their website and so I clicked on the “Contact Us” page. There I have seen absolutely all the available methods to get in touch with this pharmacy and they include: the contact form, the toll free phone number or toll free fax number. The call centers are working 24 hours a day 7 days a week and they are also having different phone number and fax number for international customers. There is also email and physical address shared, in Toronto, which can be used for mailing or even visiting (but returns are not accepted at this address).
There seem to be enough contact information, I just don’t like this information is different from the one on scamadviser.com and that’s why my rate is 4 stars.
Getting in Touch
I have tried to get in touch with universaldrugstore.com using the contact form. According to the information on their website, the pharmacy is going to respond back to your enquiry within one business day if you decide to write them by email. Nonetheless, this doesn’t seem to be very true. That’s because there is no response back after one full business day.
Since this online pharmacy doesn’t really care about their customers, or simply the customer support department didn’t wanted to answer my question about the coupon codes, I doubt that I can give them more than 1 point for this unit.
Conclusion: CIPA Approved but LegitScript.com Unapproved
UniversalDrugstore.com is an online pharmacy which claims to be from Canada and claims to be very popular with a lot of customers. They seem to have a lot of different Rx and OTC medications including even medications for pets. There are some pluses this pharmacy has but there are a lot of minuses as well. Pluses:
Universal Drugstore.com has a wide selection of drugs, free shipping, they have a lot of payment methods accepted, the page speed of desktop version is fast, they do offer a mobile version of site, encrypted connection, Norton antivirus secured site, they do require a prescription for ordering Rx drugs and they are CIPA approved with good reviews on site.
But the minuses include: the prices for medications are pretty high without coupon codes or other forms of saving money, they offer a single shipping option and free shipping only to USA and Canada people. The page speed of mobile version is very slow, the encryption level is low and no owner information shared and it is not very convenient to order here because they request registration. They are unapproved on legitscript.com and a lot of negative customer reviews on independent websites without customer support to answer my questions. Also, scamadviser.com doesn’t find any information about Canada so that’s pretty suspicious.
I’m not very sure if ordering from an online pharmacy with so many minuses is worth it so I can’t really recommend universal drugstore to my readers.