Prices, Prices, how cheap is cheap enough?

I was looking to buy some Deca the other day and as I actually do what I preach (well, almost) I opted to find some Human Grade stuff; which gave only 3 options really, Organon/schering, Norma, and Asia Pharma. To my knowledge original Deca Durabolin by Organon is not produced any more since the Schering took over. Asia Pharma is out everywhere, so I was trying to find Norma. Easy enough one would say.

I don’t mind paying for quality stuff but cheaper is still better and I’ve contacted some people I’ve dealt with in the past. I also kept in mind the Lab test done by the German authorities when the busted couple of dealers (to refresh your memory, all the deca there, mainly Norma, was fake containing testosterone - more info on premium-steroids.com). And the replies I got were very “interesting”). The record braking offer came from Portugal, He gets them for EUR 1.9 a piece ($2.7) and for me he would send 40 vials to me for EUR 2.5, cause “You’re my friend”. Got many other offers, prices ranging in the segment of EUR 4 - EUR 7, some claiming domestic delivery, etc. All claiming original product, 100% satisfaction guarantee. And going as far as $20 per vial when ordering 40 vials. Woo ha, sounds interesting? Sure $3 per vial sounds like a deal of a lifetime but what would I actually be getting?

Got an acquaintance in Greece, supposedly well connected, so naturally I contacted him as well hoping he would be able to arrange something for me. After all, Norma is made in Greece so the price should be lowest there. I was out of luck though, as he gave up dealing completely, but he was able to give me some info. And the info was quite shocking. According to him, the price out of the factory for a wholesaler was EUR 2.2 ($3) per vial for a large quantity, the wholesalers than markup their charge, sell them to pharmacies (I assume a 30% markup, so we’re at EUR 3 ) and than the pharmacies sell them for EUR 4 - 5 per vial, depending what deal one can get. To top it off, pharmacies in Greece actually require a prescription these days, so getting quantities is really hard. Btw, the price for pharmaceutical grade raw material of nandrolone decanoate is supposed to be around $1.2 to $1.7 per vial (200 mg), depending on quantity, purity, etc. I really did my homework on this one!

Now let’s do some logical thinking. First of all, re-selling steroids is usually a lucrative business, the main motive of the business being money. I really doubt that anybody would intentionally brake the law out of sheer charity. So naturally, I assume that the dealer’s share is at least 50% of the value, probably a lot more. What we’ve learned from the recent arrests was the dealers ended up with a lot of money Hickman (UK) had a 100% markup. Second of all, if it is really hard to get a product in the country where it is made, the initial source also wants a lot of cash so he would sell the product without papers. I really doubt that the factory itself would sell their prods underground (although it is Greece after all), most probably a wholesaler would be willing to get rid of some extra products, probably with some extra money for the trouble.

So we can safely assume it’s impossible to get original, Greek made Norma Nandrolone Decanoate below EUR 3, with the dealers bribe probably more like EUR 4. And this is the beginning of the line. According to my “Portugal Friend”, his Norma must have gotten cheaper on the way from Greece to Portugal, probably because of the rotation of the earth or something. How else can I explain he gets Original Norma in Portugal for 30% less than the factory sells it for? Even if somebody robbed the factory he would have charged a lot more than EUR 1.9 for robbery and smuggling to Portugal.

Even if I look at offers around $7.00 I still wonder how in the hell they could do it without some charity work involved (as said, I believe dealing roids is mainly for profit). Let’s say one gets ORIGINAL NORMA from a wholesaler, I think that’s the most probable way, It would cost around EUR 4. That, ladies and gentlemen, is $5.60 these days! So whoever is selling them for 6, 7, even 8 dollars, including shipping and all other costs, is in my opinion yanking my *****. Domestic delivery for $8-10 is in my opinion also bull as I doubt anyone would smuggle loads of Illegal substances to US for a mere end profit of 2, maybe 3 US dollars per vial.

Reflecting on this I would have to assume the cheapest you could get real, Original Norma, would be in the price range of $12-13 dollars, or more. As said, sources usually have a high markup. Everything below that is most probably a fake product with some test or no steroid contents, possibly even a scam. So the old saying “I’m not rich enough to buy cheap” is on the spot. The problem of course is that the dealers will read this post and will simply increase prices, so you will end up paying more for same fake Norma. (Btw, I am really sorry for this).

And, as we’re on the subject, what about the other prices? Prices of the so called Underground Labs? The newest and “The best” Sciroxx brand Deca is sold for $80, if you buy bulk you can get it for as low as $60. Do note it is supposed to be 300 mg per ml so in theory the cost of raw should be that much higher. If we look at the raw price above, we would conclude the raw materials cost $2 - $2.5 per ml, 10 ml vial should therefore contain some 22 USD worth of raw materials. Include other substances, you’re at 25 USD. Now we have to include cost of equipment - this is complicated. In general smaller factory costs more per item manufactured than a large one (per unit manufactured). So the cost should be quite high. It’s most probably not really a Human Grade product, so the price is really hard to determine. And there’s labor - this is exactly vice versa. In a legit pharmaceutical company the salaries are small while in an Underground lab the labor costs more as it is in the end an illegal activity. So we’ll assume the total cost of the vial is around $30.00. now add a 50% markup (steroid dealers are greedy) and we get factory price of $45. This translates to $3.00 per 200 mg which, you will notice, is comparable to Norma Factory price.

So my question is, since these labs supposedly don’t sell directly, where are the fees for dealers, aggressive marketing, shipping products, etc? Are these guys really saints and all in all their profit is only 30% of the price the buyer buys it for? However I turn these figures around I doesn’t add up. The only error I see in my speculation is that I’ve made a mistake and got the wrong price for the raw material. Or maybe I didn’t and they’re just using lower grade raw materials? Who knows…

In the end I decided I would try any Norma just to be on the safe side - I’d rather wait a little. For you guys that bother to read this whole extremely long post (I’ll probably move it to articles section) the end line is this: Don’t be fooled by the low prices. If the price is really low, they’ve must have compensated elsewhere. The 300 deca you’re buying may only contain 200 mg, maybe 100 mg, maybe test, you never know. It will give you some results, enough for you to be happy with and that’s the whole trick why Underground Labs are still around - buy it is probably not what you’ve paid for.