ŌSHUN SUPPLY
 
Frequently Asked Questions

This page was last updated on April 16, 2007.

Ordering
 

• How do I place an order with Oshun Supply?
   
  You can place your order right from this web site, at your convenience, 24/7. Simply click on a product category and begin your order. To add an item to your order, just click on the "Add To Order" button next to the price. For more detailed assistance with ordering, please see our How To Order Page.

 

• Can I fax in a purchase order, order by phone or email?
   
  All orders must be placed on our web site. We have set up our ordering system so that it is efficient and we can continue to provide fast shipping of orders. We do not pay staff to answer the phone, the cost savings are passed on to you in the product pricing. If you are having a problem ordering please see our How To Order or Shopping Help pages.

 

• What payment terms do you offer?
   
  All orders are prepaid. We accept Visa and Mastercard. Sorry, we do not offer Net 30 terms. We also offer several non-credit card payment methods. For more information about our terms, please see our Ordering Policies Page.

 

• What about security? I'm a little leary about giving my credit card information over the internet
   
  Our web site is secure with 128 bit SSL encryption. You can also verify the security of our web site by clicking on the little lock icon at the bottom of your browser when on a secure page to view our security certificate. Credit card information is held in a secure place on our server until the order is batched. Once the orders are batched, the batch is deleted along with the credit card data. Sensitive information is not left on the server any longer than necessary for your additional protection. Offline we also take measures to protect your privacy and data. Please see our Security and Privacy Statement Page.

 

• What about privacy? What will you use our contact information for?
   
  Your contact information is used to process and ship your order only. We are strongly against all methods of unsolicited sales, including bulk mail, telemarketing and spam. We will never share your information with anyone else and will never use it to spam you either. If you have been a client of ours for any length of time, you'll already know we do not send out emails plugging products or trying to solicit sales. We also do not maintain a database of the information collected from orders. We do have a database in our Canada Post EST/VCD shipping software which makes shipping to existing clients much easier and faster. We do ocassionally send out emails with holiday schedules or to pass along important news. Please see our Security and Privacy Statement Page for more details.

 

• Do you have a minimum order requirement?
   
  We have a $100 order minimum.

 

• What if I only want to order $20 worth of product right now?
   
  Sorry, we are unable to accept orders below our minimum. It costs a lot to process, pick, pack and ship out an order and to be efficient the order must be worth enough to make the time to do it worthwhile. It's also very inefficient and expensive to be ordering small quantities more frequently. Ordering a bit more a little less often saves shipping costs and your time in purchasing. We have hundreds of products to choose from if you need to add more items to your order to make the minimum.

 

• What method are orders shipped by?
   
  Orders are shipped by Canada Post. We enjoy excellent rates due to the volume of shipping we do. By shipping by post, we can not only offer the lowest cost shipping available, but also ship to any address in North America including PO Boxes. Shipping by Greyhound Courier freight collect is also available. For more information about shipping, please see our Shipping Info Page.

 

• How long does it take to get an order?
   
  All orders are shipped out as soon as possible. We ship twice a week. If an item is out of stock or there will be any delay in shipping your order, we will email you and let you know.

 

• Where do you ship to?
   
  We can ship to all addresses, including PO Boxes, within Canada and the United States. We do not ship outside N. America at this time.

 

• I'm local, can I come pick up my order?
   
  All orders are shipped out. We do not have a showroom and our business license does not permit public on the property. We offer free delivery to clients within the Shuswap (Chase - Revelstoke - Salmon Arm).
   
  
• What are the prices?
   
  All our prices are listed on the web site. We also have downloadable price lists available on our downloads page.

 

• Are your prices retail or wholesale?
   
  All our prices are wholesale. We do not sell retail.

 

• Are discounts available?
   
  All our clients enjoy the same pricing. Discounts are built into the prices based on volume. Economy of scale applies. Buying the larger sizes or quantities of an item will result in a lower cost per unit. Specially discounted pricing is available on items in our Clearance category.

 

• Can you send me a printed catalogue or price list?
   
  At this time we do not have a printed price list available to mail out. Unfortunately a printed price list can become obsolete and outdated very quickly. As we are planning many changes and new products, we will not be printing up a price list this year. We do however realize many of you prefer to have a printed product or price list to refer to and browse through offline, so we do have some versions available for downloading or printing on this site. Please see our Downloads Page.

 

• What if I don't have a company, can I still order from you?
   
  Absolutely! Although we are a wholesaler, we are also happy to supply crafters, hobbyists and individuals provided they can meet our minimum order. We have a large clientele of individuals, hobbyists, fundraisers, schools, religious organizations and more.

 

Products
 

• What kind of products do you carry?
   
  We have hundreds of in-stock products that could be generally classified as cosmetic and personal care ingredients and packaging. We serve cosmetic, personal care, body care, aromatherapy, spa, retail, and other trades. Many products that we stock also have applications in other or related industries, such as health, industrial, and food markets.

 

• Are your prices Retail or Wholesale?
   
  We have only one set of prices, as listed on this web site. We are a wholesale supplier and do not sell retail.

 

• How do I find product data or specifications?
   
  Product data for the ingredients we sell can be found on our Ingredient Info Page. This information is also available on each of those products' pages in the shopping cart, accessible by clicking on the product code. Product data sheets for our Essential Oil are available on our Essential Oil Info Page. Information about the packaging items we sell can be found on our Packaging Info Page.

 

• Where can I get an ingredient list?
   
  Ingredient Lists for all the products we carry that have more than one component can be found on our INCI Ingredient List Page.

 

• How do I figure out how to list various ingredients on my product labels?
   
  Ingredient names for cosmetic products are listed using INCI (International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredients) terms. We have provided an Ingredient Name Translator Page for your use that includes all the ingredients we sell, as well as many other commonly used ingredients.

 

Company
 

• What is Oshun Supply?
   
  Oshun Supply Inc. is a privately held, family owned and operated, wholesale supply company incorporated in the province of British Columbia. We have been in business since 1996 and look forward to serving our industry for many years to come. The Gagnon family takes pride in running our business in a highly ethical and efficient manor. If you phone or email us, you will be dealing with Sherri, other family members work behind the scenes.

 

• Where are you located?
   
  Oshun Supply is located in Salmon Arm, BC in the southern interior of British Columbia. We are halfway between Vancouver and Calgary on the Trans Canada Highway. We relocated to our larger warehouse premises in Salmon Arm from our old location in Mission in the fall of 2004. Our warehouse is located on our farm and we do not have a showroom. All orders are shipped out.

 

• How do I get in touch with you folks if I have a question I can't find the answer to on this site?
   
  We can be contacted by email at info@oshun.ca We prefer email communication because it not only allows us to provide you with a better, or more comprehensive answer, including links if necessary, but also because we can reply to an email any time, often meaning a much quicker response than leaving a phone message. If you prefer to talk to a live person, our phone number is 250-832-1099. We do not have staff paid to answer the phone, and may be away from our desk when you call, if so please leave a detailed message on our voicemail and we will return your call as soon as possible and as business hours allow. If you need to fax something to us, our fax number is 250-832-1079. Please do not use our fax to send us unsolicited marketing materials. We like fax spam even less than the email form as it wastes paper and toner.

 

• Do you have other branches, warehouses or distributors?
   
  We have one location where all business is conducted from. We are not affiliated with any other companies.

 

• Can I come see the products?
   
  We do not have a showroom. Everything is on our web site, including photos. If you require a sample, for example if you want to see/test out a jar before buying a case, please send us an email requesting the sample and include your mailing address.

 

Other Questions
 

• Do you provide recipes or formulas?
   
  We provide you with a very wide selection of high quality, well priced ingredients and the bottles and jars to package them in. The formulating of your products is up to you. We have a wealth of industry links on our Links Page to assist you with regulatory and formulating help.

 

• What All Natural or Organic products do you offer?
   
  "Natural" and "Organic" are subjective terms. Because they can have any number of definitions, they are basically meaningless. One person may consider natural to include everything that is from the earth, while another might exclude mineral and animal products and only consider unmodified botanicals as natural. Organic can mean anything from the strict scientific definition of the word (anything containing a carbon atom) to only those items that are farmed in an organic manner. Certified Organic is supposed to be only for products coming from farms that have been certified by an overseeing body, but since pesticides and herbicides do not care about property boundaries, this too is often meaningless. Take for example a product like Kelp. How is an organic kelp any different from a non organic one when they both come from the ocean? What about a product that comes from an aromatic plant that doesn't require any chemicals to keep pests away, or that is harvested by subsistence farmers who can't afford the costly agricultural chemicals even if they wanted to?
   
  
• We manufacture all natural body care products, what can we use?
   
  If your definition of all natural means no synthetic ingredients, then your product line will be limited to mostly dry and anhydrous product types. Anything that contains water, such as an emulsion like cream or lotion, requires proper preservation with an approved, tested, broad spectrum preservative system. Since there are at the present time no "All Natural" preservatives that have been proven effective, safe and without a heavy odour, you will only be able to produce products like lotion if they are kept refrigerated and thrown out within a few days. Meeting an all natural designation should never take precedence over product safety.
   
  That said, we do carry a large selection of natural ingredients for personal care products, including carrier oils, butters, botanicals, extracts, and more. The shelf life of oils used in natural products can be extended by treating the oils with Rosemary Extract, a natural anti-oxidant.

 

• How do we get an MSDS?
   
  You'll find links to a couple of MSDS web sites on our Links page. There you can find MSDS for thousands of ingredients and have the safety data prior to even ordering the product. We receive MSDS with only a few of our hundreds of products. While we hope someday to have our own MSDS for all our products available on the web site, as you can imagine this is a major project, so we don't expect to have that done any time soon. Please be aware than an MSDS sheet contains safe handling, toxicity and spill or clean up directions and related info only. MSDS stands for Materials Safety Data Sheets. An MSDS does not provide product data, analysis or use rates, and should not be confused with a product data sheet or Certificate of Analysis. Where ever we have product data from the manufacturer, or CofA info, we have provided this on our Ingredient Info page.

 

• Can you make products for us?
   
  We are not a contract manufacturer. Companies that specialize in these services can be found with a web search, or in ads and listings in trade magazines like HAPPI.

 

• Can we put our label/name on your soap?
   
  Absolutely. We sell our soap in bulk, the bare bars and once you purchase them they are yours to do with what you wish. Sell them as is bare, put your own label on, package them how you wish. We also carry a number of bulk cosmetic products that you can custom scent and package for sale. We do not produce a ready for retail finished product line.

 

• How do I find out what's new or changed since I last visited your site?
   
  All news, changes to the web site, price changes, product additions or deletions are listed on our What's New Page

 

• Still didn't find the answer you were looking for?
   
  Just send us an email. We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.