What I asked before I ordered, and what I should have asked

My approach is to ask three questions before ordering anywhere, take the answers as data, and treat a non-answer as an answer.

Something I would flag about the wider market: a great many names have a handful of submissions, no consistent documentation and nothing verifiable at all behind them.

I would say ask for the batch record and see what comes back. The suppliers with a real documentation process send it without a fuss.

The bit in the middle is the bit I needed to read.

Something practical: I photograph the vial, the label and the paperwork on arrival, every time, before anything else happens.

The thing that surprised me was how much variation there is at the thin end of the market, where a name may have one result and a website.

What I would say to somebody new is to read the risk paragraph at the top of the reference pages properly before anything else on them.