Selling books - Opinions please!

mystery07 · 1 September 2008 at 11:21PM

Hey guys,

Ive come across a couple of times before book companies, who you can work as an "agent" for & sell books on their behalf. Never thought that much of it as a great earning potential, but have recently come across usborne doing it, which intrested me a bit more (my son loves usborne books).

Well, apparently it seems you have to pay roughly £38 for a starter kit of books, obviously for you to present to potential customers (usually this would be a no-no for me, but you are getting real books!!) and the RRP on those is £160. Then it seems you sell as & when you like etc as with avon etc etc....

Although, what has put me off contacting them, is it seems a bit like kleeneze in, your part of a team etc & the person above you gets a cut also. They also seem to be trying to attract people with the prospect of free holidays on usborne!

not sure about that bit!!

Does anyone have any experience of this, I dont want to go ahead & contact someone who is then going to push me into something I might regret! Im not so fussed about the £38 bit, its more a case of being part of a team that I'm not so sure of!

Any opinions welcome

Thanks

j73 · 1 September 2008 at 11:30PM

Hi
I personally don't do Usbourne, but I have a couple of freinds that do and they seem to thoroughlly enjoy it.
They sell at fares & fetes and to friends & family.
I wouldn't dwell too much on the person that recruited you, on earning money on your sales. This doesn't affect you in any way.

X

janet6267 · 1 September 2008 at 11:36PM

I thought about doing this also but wasn't sure in the end. It is not a huge outlay to give it a go is it?

mystery07 · 1 September 2008 at 11:44PM

Thanks j73, I wasnt sure, if this was regarded as others as slightly dodgy! Nice to hear other people are enjoying it.

Janet, Ive seen online a starter kit for £38, this could have changed, but I wouldnt expect something like this to cost hundreds! Otherwise, who would join up? http://www.usborneonline.org/join_team/sign_up_now.asp heres the link.

elliep_2 · 2 September 2008 at 1:13AM

I work for body shop at home and it's a similar structure in that the people above me get a cut of my sales but all it really means is that the people above me want me to do well so they help me as much as they can.

It's also designed to encourage me to recruit more consultants but that's very much a personal choice.

Obviously if I want that income from other people's work and am happy to provide them with support and encouragement in return then I could do that, or if I didn't want to recruit people and build up any team under me I don't have to. At the moment if someone was particually interested and asked me about it I'd sign them up but I wouldn't go pushing it on someone who wasn't interested.

I imagine usborne are similar in that they probably provide incentives for you to recruit (and for someone to recruit you) but if you're not worried about getting the recruits you can still earn a respectable income from purely doing the selling that you sign up for.

If the £38 isn't a huge deal to you then what have you got to loose? Take a look and see what you're signed up for if you sign. with body shop you only have to do 6 parties then you can leave any time you want, and in those 6 parties you should easily earn back your outlay (as long as they are telling the truth about average party values etc, i'll find out when I do my first party next week).

hamsterholly · 2 September 2008 at 11:43AM

Hi

I am a team leader for Usborne and I offer the support to my team when they need it. I am not on the phone every day pushing them to order but I send out emails to them a few times a month. They know where I am and some people are happy to be left alone and other people contact me a few times a week. I try and manage my team the way I would want to be. Nobody wants a pushy leader and the beauty of Usborne is you do as much or as little as you want to.

As the poster above said the starter kit for September is free. You would get £100 worth of books ( and yes they are lovely and real ) and catalogues to get you started. You would need to hold a party or event in September and achieve £100 sales or more. You would get commission on this order.

You can view my website in my profile ( your not allowed to post links to your website in your posting ).

Yes Usborne do offer free holidays but you dont have to go for these incentives if you dont want to. Great incentives though as the next holiday is a trip to Mexico !!!!

There is also a further thread on Usborne further down on the working from home board with more information on

Hope that helps

Tracey

janet6267 · 2 September 2008 at 11:48AM

I checked this out and downloaded the application form, make sure you read it well or you could get caught out, it states

"In the unlikely event of your not subsequently submitting orders worth a
minimum value of £100 in total, within 12 weeks of our receiving your
agreement and payment, we will alter your Usborne status from Organiser
to customer, and invoice you for the difference between the price you paid
for your kit and the retail price. Following receipt of your balance payment

the kit is entirely your property and your further obligation to us is nil."

I am not sure how easy this would be to achieve and as the kit is free in September you could end up owing them rather a lot.

hamsterholly · 2 September 2008 at 11:54AM

The terms and conditions are there so people dont just simply sign up for the free books and have no intention of ever ordering. I have never come across anyone who has not managed to fuflill the £100 order however if this was the case then yes you would be billed for the full cost of the kit which would be £100 this month. The books would still be yours to keep or sell on.

janet6267 · 2 September 2008 at 5:14PM

hamsterholly wrote: »

The terms and conditions are there so people dont just simply sign up for the free books and have no intention of ever ordering. I have never come across anyone who has not managed to fuflill the £100 order however if this was the case then yes you would be billed for the full cost of the kit which would be £100 this month. The books would still be yours to keep or sell on.

Yes that makes sense but just wanted to point out to anyone who struggled with orders and did not have much cash they may have a problem and a large bill. £100 is a lot of money.

KJ1980 · 2 September 2008 at 6:05PM

janet6267 wrote: »

Yes that makes sense but just wanted to point out to anyone who struggled with orders and did not have much cash they may have a problem and a large bill. £100 is a lot of money.

I agree with you Janet the form promoting it doesn't promote that you need to do the order so I have been making sure people I tell about the Free books know they have to do the £100 orders in Sept.

Here's a break down too:

£0.00 to join and keep the £100 of books in the kit
Order books to the total of £100 this equates to £76 as 24%
When you place a £100 order if you put in two future bookings in the next 4 weeks you get 20% of free books of your choice so £20 free
For placing a £100 order within your first 3 weeks of joining you get £25 of free books

SO ALL IN you get £246 of Usborne books for £76 !!!! I've worked this out again against the special offers and if the person ordering was to keep all books and buy a current phonics and first experiences offer they would have books that total to £316.

Amazing as its Crimbo time and with the credit crunch, books are a brill present.

xx

mystery07 · 2 September 2008 at 9:44PM

Thanks for pointing out that clause janet. Did find another thread on usborne, I shouldve posted there

Selling books - Opinions please!

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