Usborne Books - Does anyone do this from home?

blondy24

Hi,

I have just read a thread where someone recommends doing Usborne Books from Home. Can you go door to door and hand out leaflets / catalogues a bit like Kleeneze?

Also I have just been reading the form to join and the text below concerns me a little. Is it possible to reach the 100 pounds min in the first 3 months? - Sorry for questions - this is just new to me.

"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 close your account and invoice you for

the difference between the price you paid for your kit and the retail price".

Thanks for any help provided

blondy24

I thought there were people on MSE forum that do Usborne Books from home. Please help.

go4it

To be honest I wouldn't bother.

Usbourne sellers sell their books at the book RRP. I was at a stall last week and they were selling a book for £14.99. Went home to check on Amazon and they were selling for £8.99.

The books are nice, but to sell you need to sell to people who don''t know how to use a computer and don't know that Amazon exists.

Mim_D

Hi there!
I sell Usborne books from home and really enjoy it as I love the books and they really do sell themselves. You do need to place an order for £100 worth of books within the first 12 weeks, however this should be easily achievable in the run up to Christmas. The cost to join is only £38 and this includes £100 worth of books and stationary to get you started!
I personally haven't tried selling door to door however there is lots of scope to sell direct to schools, and I tend to visit toddler groups and sell at places where I can take my children with me.
Hope this helps with your questions.

blondy24

Hi Mim D - thanks for your post. A few questions (some may sound stupid);

Do you have to have children in order to do this?
Do you know anyone who gives catalogue's / leaflets through people's doors?
Can you do this on the side line as I currently have a 5 day full time job, but need some extra money.
What is the average cost per book?
If you do sell a book and the buyer pays by credit card does the commisson go into your bank account or into your book account?

Sorry for asking all this - thanks again

Mim_D

No problem to answer your questions...
1. You definitely don't need to have children, it's just something that I've started since having children as I find it fits in well.
2. I don't have experience of posting leaflets through doors as I tend to sell books at events/parties. I would suggest that posting catalogues wouldn't really be cost effective as they cost £2 each (they are a book in themselves!). I find that I get repeat orders from friends and family... maybe work colleagues could also be potential customers?
3. You can do as much or as little as you like. If you are working during the day for example, you might decide to try parties in the evenings/at weekends, or in the run up to Christmas maybe ladies shopping evenings.
4. Books range in price but start at £1.50 for a small paperback storybook.
5. If a customer pays by credit/debit card you can submit the details in to the system when you place your order. If you end up in the situation where Usborne owes you commission at the end of the month this can remain on your account to offset against a future order or there is the opportunity for it to be paid direct to your bank account.
Hope that helps!

blondy24

Thanks very much for answering the questions, it's very helpful and nice to talk to someone who works for them.

Do you make much money from this or do you think go4it is right that more people use the internet to get cheaper books?

Kit603

I don't do Usborne books but I think that if you put enough effort into it then it can certainly be profitable. However, you might find that without catalogues to use then you'll be relying a lot on parties and stalls at events and schools etc. If you don't have a lot of free time and you aren't a very outgoing person then it would be very easy to just give up and say "people aren't interested".

I've been doing Kleeneze for a while and when I tried to sell their jewellery range through party-plan, I found it quite hard to find people who wanted to have parties and had to rely on my friends/family/customers. This isn't so bad for a while, but after a while they'll get bored and you can't keep using your friends/family to buy books - they'll be sick of you!

Another downside would be that to do a stall or anything like that then you'd need to have a lot more stock than you'd get in your initial pack. So, whilst it can work very well (i've met some successful usborne reps), i'd imagine that it takes more than the initial £38 investment for it to really work.

Mim_D

Of course people will use the internet to buy books, but Usborne reps are able to give a personal service and offer free delivery to local customers. Also, if a customer hosts a party they receive FREE books which is even better! We have a whole catalogue of books to choose from and also have special offers available during the year. You earn 24% in commission on everything you sell (plus you can make more on your starter kit books if you sell those at full price!) and there is the opportunity to earn more if you recruit a team. It sounds like you have read up on it, however if you want more information I have a website but I'm new to posting on this site and not sure that I am allowed to post the link, in which case you might need to contact me direct for more information.
For £38 it's not a big expense to give it a try, especially if you have someone who would help start you off by hosting a party so that you can get your £100 order in...

keggs

I do Usborne amongst other things. It's very easy to do. I have dropped off brochures (the 6 / 8 page ones not the catalogue books). They only cost about £4 for 50 so it is a lot cheaper than what you have to pay out for Kleeneze catalogues. It does work but I don't think it is as effective in getting customers. But the low cost of the brochures makes it worth it. I feel it is easier to build up a relationship with Usborne customers than it is with Kleeneze. The products are far better for starters.

Hope that helps.

Steve

Kit603

keggs wrote: »

I do Usborne amongst other things. It's very easy to do. I have dropped off brochures (the 6 / 8 page ones not the catalogue books). They only cost about £4 for 50 so it is a lot cheaper than what you have to pay out for Kleeneze catalogues. It does work but I don't think it is as effective in getting customers. But the low cost of the brochures makes it worth it. I feel it is easier to build up a relationship with Usborne customers than it is with Kleeneze. The products are far better for starters.

Hope that helps.

Steve

I'd agree that if you use those brochures and posted those, or left them in public places such as libraries, schools, doctor's surgeries etc then you might be able to get a good response and if you stapled a little insert to the front saying you're a new rep in the area and you're also available to do book parties then you could get parties that way! £4 for 50 isn't bad at all but 6-8 pages isn't very much so it can't really contain all the products available. However, I know that my secondary school worked with an Usborne Rep and always had a pile of these on the library counter and seemed to get some regular orders from kids that took them home to parents and the school was happy to do that because, from what I understood, they got free books out of it.

Steve have you actually worked for Kleeneze? I think its very unfair to make judgements such as that if you haven't, and its very unfair to compare products that are completely different. I think that some of the books offered by Usborne can be really good and can be good value, but I also think the same of our products. Still, I wouldn't like to compare books against cosmetics or cleaning products if you know what I mean? Lol.

I would disagree about the building up relationships with customers too. As many Usborne Reps have said on the MSE boards, you don't always get a lot of repeat custom unless its through a school/friends/family - which is fair enough. However, with Kleeneze, I get the same people ordering time and time again and some of these people i've gotten to know really well. Again, I think its unfair to compare the two because they work in different ways and i'm sure that some Usborne Reps have great bonds with their customers whilst others barely know them, and i'm sure the same can be said for Kleeneze.

With regard to the Usborne brochures £4 for 50 isn't bad at all but again its unfair to compare these against the Kleeneze catalogues as your £4 brochures are just a few pages long whilst our Kleeneze catalogues contain more than 450 products and have over 100 pages - even our supplements are much longer than your brochures. Indeed, £32 gets you 50 Main books, 50 Health and Beauty Books and 50 Christmas Catalogues, a pack of order forms and 55 catalogue bags.

£32 divided by 150 catalogues = £0.21 each + the order forms and catalogue bags.

Plus, you can actually pick up our supplements cheaper than the main books:

£9 for 50 Christmas catalogues = £0.18 each
£6 for 50 of other supplements = £0.12 each

If you were to compare these to the cost of the actual Usborne Catalogues which I understand to be £2 each. This is much cheaper, but again they shouldn't really be compared because Usborne and Kleeneze work in very different ways!

The OP hasn't asked for your opinion on Kleeneze, therefore it isn't fair to use this thread to moan about it. I only mentionned Kleeneze to let the OP know that whilst my experience doesn't come from being an Usborne Rep, it comes from somewhere