Welcome to the Product Directory help pages. Each icon shown below is listed on a suppliers page. See below for a full explanation. These icons are meant to contribute toward offering you peace of mind whilst shopping over the net.

Certification info, shows information on quality awards

Security info, how safe is your credit card?

Customer Service, is there any, telephone numbers etc.

Product Info, how informative and easy to use is the site.

Email, quick mail link and unique reference number for listing

Shop 'em, if you have problems, let us know. We can help.

It's not just a question of seeing the mark on the website page. Companies pay large sums of money to acquire the legitimate right to display these marks, and will also indicate an accompanying certificate number as seen in the two examples below

Want to make sure your credit card details are safe? Look at the bottom right corner of your browser. See a lock like the one above?. Click on this lock and it will display information about the security level of the site. No lock, no security.

Most sites offer 128 bit encryption and security. This is almost overkill, but at least your safe. Another indication of a secure area is the address bar in the browser. In an unsecured website the address will begin http://www.theallergy... (as can be seen by looking at the current address bar for this window.
Move to a secure area and the address bar now looks like this https://ww. The s on the end of the http indicates a secured website.

A word on frames and popup windows. These very often wont display the lock, or the address bar. This is no mans land. You may or may not be on a secured page. In this situation, I feel it's up to the website owner to provide a link on the page where a shopper can identify the security level of that particular page.

Does the product or service you are buying require you to be in frequent contact with the company, or is it a direct, one off, sale. If it's the former, then customer service is important. A lot of companies opt for email communication nowadays, and are loathe to provide customer service numbers.

Call me old fashioned, but I still like a human voice, and it's very difficult to have a rewarding whinge via email. Still, in all fairness, there are some of the larger companies that do answer emails promptly. This method also offers the advantage of having a written record of your complaint and the companies response.

If you are allergic or very sensitive to certain ingredients, chemicals, colourants or anything else, then you know by now what an absolute pain it is trying to establish the ingredients or content of a product. The "very nice, but what's in it" question.

This is one of the primary factors in accepting potential products, services and retailers on our directory. If the product content or ingredient list is not clearly displayed with ALL, and we do mean ALL the various ingredients, then it just "aint happenin". No clear content, no listing.
As an example of content, please visit the Avea Shop. Nothing hidden, everything listed. This way the consumer or buyer can make an informed decision before purchasing.

A quick link to email the company listed. You wont need to visit their site, you can mail directly from this link (Outlook or Outlook Express). If you need a feedback form and do not have access to direct email, you may use our feedback form on the left. We will forward the email to the relevant company so don't forget to tell us who it is you are trying to contact. Include the unique 6 digit reference displayed in this box.

Had a bad experience, where you sold a defective product, no after sales service, refund problem or any other hassles, tell us. We will investigate and remove the offender from the directory. The investigation is impartial and we will let you know what the results are. Quite often, a matter can be resolved amicably, with both parties happy.

Take me to the directory.