How to Buy CBD Products Online: The Smart Shoppers Guide

How to Buy CBD Products Online: The Smart Shoppers Guide

Discover how CBD buyers can be more savvy about choosing best websites and products from the plethora of offerings.

If you’re like most Americans looking to buy consumer products online, the first place you'll look is Amazon. But there are a few types of products that Amazon doesn’t carry, and CBD is one of them. So if you want to buy CBD products online, you’ll likely have to sift through multiple websites to find what you need.

It can therefore be a bit daunting to decide where to buy CBD oil. The CBD industry is full of small startups, many of questionable character. So here are some tips on how to buy CBD online that will guide you to the products and services you want.

What Makes a Good CBD Company?

Choosing the right vendor is the key first step in CBD shopping. When it comes to deciding where to buy CBD oil, there are several factors you should keep in mind to guarantee you receive a quality product that abides by U.S. regulations. In addition, you’ll want to buy CBD from a transparent source that’s happy and willing to answer any questions you may have. Generally speaking, here’s what you want to look for:

  • Buy American. While there are some good foreign CBD makers, American-made CBD companies are more likely to comply with U.S. laws related to THC content, hemp-growing standards, and consumer rights.
  • Their website should be clear and straightforward, providing you with lots of information about their company and manufacturing process. Do they tell you whether their product is CBD isolate, full spectrum, or broad spectrum? Do they include the THC content? Do they post third-party lab results? Transparency is important.
  • What outside sources about the company? Look for any press coverage, user reviews, and endorsements that people are willing to back with their real names.
  • Be sure to read the fine print about shipping and returns before you buy CBD online. Especially if you’re new to CBD, you want to be able to make returns and exchanges easily as you work out your personal CBD regimen. Don't be afraid to call customer service if you have questions – in addition to providing information, this will also give you a good idea of how the customer service team responds.
A laptop sits open with two bottles of cbd oil tincture from cbdmd next to it

Are You Buying CBD Products Online for Yourself or Your Pet?

CBD oil is helpful to humans, dogs, and cats in similar ways. But if you’re looking to buy CBD online for your pet, it’s best to choose a site with dedicated CBD pet products. That way, the concentrations, flavors, and added ingredients are tailored for the specific animal, making your fuzzy friend more likely to enjoy consuming them. Customer service will also be able to answer pet-related questions.

Choosing the Right CBD Oil for Your Lifestyle

If you’ve been thinking about trying out CBD to help with your pain or anxiety, there’s no time like the present. The criteria for choosing which product is right for you isn’t so different than choosing one for your pet: you’ll want to look at which administration method is best for you and your schedule and if the taste matters. If you’re busy, CBD capsules might be the way to go. Or maybe you want to give the kid in you a couple of yummy gummies every day. If you don’t know which product you might like best, then a CBD bundle may be the right choice for you!

What You Should Look for When Buying CBD for Your Pet

The flavor is especially important when trying to coax an animal to take the product. A cat might be suspicious if you add a strange new oil to its food, but what if it tastes like catnip? How eagerly might your dog scarf down CBD if infused with peanut butter? Customer service should also be able to answer any pet-related questions.

A wide offering of cbd products from cbdmd including cbd topicals and cbd tinctues sits together

How Do You Choose Which CBD Product to Buy?

There are three components to this question: what form of CBD should you take, why are you interested in CBD, and what should the concentration be?

The first question is the more complicated one because there are many, many forms of CBD out there including tinctures, edibles, creams, and bath products, just to name a few. We’ve dedicated entire posts to choosing the right CBD oil for you. Whether you’re ready to try CBD oil for the first time or you want to try out a new method, here’s a great place to start

Why Are You Interested in Taking CBD?

There are al lot of claims out there about what CBD can do for you, and some of them are pretty wild. We advise that if you’re looking for help with overall wellness and want to stay calm and relaxed throughout the day, a basic internal CBD product taken every day will work well. These come in several varieties:

  • CBD oil tinctures are one of the simplest and most popular forms because they come in multiple flavors and strengths and can be useful in various ways.
  • CBD oil capsules are also helpful for their simplicity and the fact that each capsule comes with a precisely measured amount of CBD.
  • Edibles such as CBD gummies offer similar advantages to capsules but come in tasty flavors and sometimes include supplemental nutrients.
  • CBD vapes are a popular specialty item for people who enjoy vaping.

When choosing between these products, the next question is how quickly you want it to begin circulating in your body and how long you want it to last. Here the delivery method matters, so take a moment before deciding which CBD product is right for you:

  • Inhaled forms of CBD like vapes begin to interact with your body almost instantly but wear off within a few hours.
  • CBD oil delivered under the tongue before swallowing can begin circulating after 30 minutes and last for several hours.
  • CBD that’s swallowed, either in capsule or edible form, takes an hour or two to fully interact with your body but can last in your system for seven hours or more.

And, of course, the user experience matters too. A CBD gummy absorbs more slowly, but can be a lot tastier than a tincture, while vapes come in a variety of flavors.

Buying CBD Products Online for Personal Care

But even all the products listed above don’t exhaust the potential of CBD. Almost every product related to personal care and grooming now has CBD added to it. Do you love a hot bath? There are CBD products for that! You can also get CBD skincare products, CBD massage oils, CBD candles, and on and on. These can be fun to add to whatever activities you enjoy doing but are probably best thought of as supplements to a daily CBD regimen.

A roll on tube of cbd relieve from cbdmd sits on a counter next to rolled towels

Buying CBD Products Online for Specific Issues

All of the delivery methods mentioned above will give you nice, whole-body benefits of CBD. However, if you’re looking to address a particular issue like pain or trouble sleeping, it might be best to choose a product that’s enhanced with other ingredients proven to help the specific problems.

For instance, if you’re dealing with joint or muscle pain, there are CBD topicals that contain pain-relieving medicines that you might see in other common topical analgesics, like menthol and lidocaine. You can also get oral CBD sleep aids enhanced with melatonin and other soothing ingredients to aid slumber.

Understanding the Ingredients in CBD Products

If you’re not an expert on medicines, a good way to investigate ingredients is by looking at the list on the product’s label. (A good CBD website should clearly provide this for every product.) By law, an FDA-approved medicine has to be set apart as the “active ingredient,” with the exact amount specified. If you look that up on WebMD or a similarly reputable site, it should give you an idea of what the product will be like – “it’s like Bengay, but with CBD!” or something along those lines.

Similarly, CBD products for pets, can also blend with medicines and other useful supplements. For instance, you can get a calming CBD oil for dogs enhanced with melatonin similar to a human sleep aid.

A cbd bundle with cbd freeze, cbd oil, cbd gummies, and cbd pm from cbdmd sits on a plaid blanket

How Much CBD Should You Buy?

If you’re new to CBD, we recommend starting with low-concentration products. If you feel the need, you can always take more of it, but cutting back on a stronger product might be more difficult.

The product’s label should give you guidelines about serving size and frequency of use. It’s a good idea to stick with those when you start and see how you feel after a few weeks of daily use. When you’re taking CBD internally, it tends to build up in your system over time, so you might not notice the benefits right away.

Remember, you can take multiple forms of CBD, but all the CBD you take internally adds up the same no matter how you take it. However, topicals don’t go into your bloodstream so you can mix those pretty freely with ingestibles.

CBD Offers You Choices

If more than one kind of CBD product appeals to you, or you have multiple CBD users at home (including pets!), then buying a CBD bundle could be a great cost-effective option. Once you’ve worked out a CBD regimen you like, joining an autoship program or a rewards program can also provide added value. Buying CBD products online can be easy, affordable, and even fun!

Devon Firestone contributed to this article.