The Origin and Concept of PWP Group

The concept of a buying group to assist people with Parkinson's Disease and other Neurological conditions was developed by myself, Dan Halligan.  At age 52 I was diagnosed with PD.  As I learned more about the disease and its progression, I decided to begin to use 1200mg of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) per day as part of my treatment.  There are credible clinical studies which found the progression of PD appears to be slowed by the use of CoQ10.

I went to my local drugstore and purchased a bottle of 100mg per gel cap (30 caps per bottle) for about $30.00.  I went home and did the math and realized that at 1200mg per day my $30 bottle was going to last about 2 1/2 days.  This seemed crazy to me.  Then I thought about all of the other people in the same position I am in.  We were all walking into our individual stores and buying one or two bottles at a time and paying high prices.

I believed that if I walked into the store and said "I want to buy 100 bottles and I want a discount" I would get a better price.  If I said "I want to buy 1,000 bottles" the price would even be better.  I realized that we needed a way for us to act as a group.  We needed to speak with one voice to get better pricing.  As I explored the idea it evolved into working directly with manufacturers to get the best possible pricing and to control quality and consistency.  The biggest challenge was what comes first, the discount or the volume ordering.  Fortunately most companies could see the logic and potential of what I was proposing and they were willing to believe the volume would follow.

I even looked into private labeling and buying in bulk shipments and then reshipping.  However, I quickly decided I didn't want to wind up with a garage full of boxes and me repacking and reshipping bottles of CoQ10.  I didn't want to have to recreate what already existed.  I just wanted us to be able to use the facilities that are already in place.

After much discussion, I got a distribution center to donate an 800 phone number for group orders.  This solved several problems.  It meant people could buy direct and didn't have to go through me.  It also meant that just by calling the phone number they were identified as a group "member" and entitled to discount pricing with no membership fees or dues.  Manufacturers donate a small volume rebate to the group to maintain the costs of operating the website and any other expenses.

So far I have received a lot of emails from people who have used the 800 number for ordering.  They have found the process to be simple to use and the people involved in taking orders to be very helpful and friendly.

Now we have grown to provide discount access to anyone that we can be of service to.  Anyone may use the buying group since the more volume we generate the more leverage we have in negotiating with suppliers.  This then helps us to achieve the initial goal of getting better pricing on supplements of value to those with PD.  We all help each other by pooling our needs.

Its modest but I feel it is a good beginning.  We have added a very high quality yet affordable Omega 3 Fish Oil capsule called Eskimo 3 and a powerful "Master Antioxidant" formula called Recancostat at significant savings over retail.  The newest exciting item we now have access to is Immune Age a fermented papaya product.  If we can build size I can see the day when we can achieve discounts on prescriptions etc.  Unfortunately there are so many of us.  We might as well use our numbers to our advantage.    (return to home page)  

    (discounts on CoQ10)   (disount on Eskimo 3)  (discount on Recancostat)