Avon Hints and Tips (Part 3)

Aesop

got my delivery today, the actual products are out of stock and will be delivered later. Not bothered about that as it was creative ordering for me, but the red cosmetic bag has been substituted with 2 gold cosmetic bags of different sizes.They are ok, nothing special. But hey a free gift, is a free gift.

claregre

aureol212 wrote: »

got my delivery today, the actual products are out of stock and will be delivered later. Not bothered about that as it was creative ordering for me, but the red cosmetic bag has been substituted with 2 gold cosmetic bags of different sizes.They are ok, nothing special. But hey a free gift, is a free gift.

I cannot understand my online invoice so will wait and see what turns up! Seems to say that they have substituted gold bags for red bags, but I thought they were gold bags anyway with the 50+ anew bonus set.
Ah well delivery on Thursday will be fun!

sarah1972

I ordered 2 30+ bonus bags and they both arrived empty saying that the products are out of stock!!

My customers are peeved and when I rang Avon they said the products may be sent with my next order but only if they are in stock ??

I now have to tell my customers that they may get there free gifts in a month but then again they may not

echo

i had to wait think it was 2/3 campaigns for 2 of the 50+ bonus bags from a flyer-emailed/rang avon a few times but it's a waste of time.now the problem is the 'new' pearl shine nail stuff.ordered 3 bottles when it first came out but had to wait 2 campaigns for them to send 1 bottle-still waiting for 2.i just don't understand how a company that has been going as long as avon can have stock problems-even more so when a new product comes out.i emailed a complaint last christmas but got a load of crap back like 'we have trend setters who........' they just don't want to know.has anybody noticed that a hell of a lot of stuff is made in Poland?

rjhammond91

One of my customers ordered that pearl shine stuff.. and was quite gutted to tell her it was out of stock and would deliver when they were back in stock. Not amused with my new streets either.. given a load of new books out and only one person answered the door to me. Lost books now. Good job I didn't use all of them.

claregre

Had to wait until next delivery for my pearl shine (2 bottles) so not too long.

Interestingly, the "silver sparks" eye shadow which I couldn't get in C18 is now back in book 5, then last chance in book 6!! Found some stock after all, did we then Avon? !!

echo

maybe somebody on here who's good at letter writing could draft a letter and all of us individually send complaints to avon via the contact us form/email-all at roughly the same time.

another grumble is the contact us form.for weeks it wasn't working so i had to mail them from my email addy-they weren't at all concerned that it wasn't working.then just over a week ago i think it was it was fixed but when i went to use it at the end of last week it was broken again ( get a load of gobbledygook)-oh and the help section don't work either ( so i told them).what is a girl supposed to do when she wants an answer and the help isn't working? you can't always post on here

NoAddedSugar

lozza1985 wrote: »

Unfortunately you are bound to loose a few brochures when canvassing an area for the first time, luckily I've never lost too many maybe 2 out of 20. It depends on your area really and whether people are used to leaving brochures outside for collection, like from betterware or kleeneze. If they aren't out when you go to collect, knock on the door and politely say you've come to collect the brochure and ask if they'd like one in the future. If there's noone in then pop a note through asking them to leave outside the next day, usually reminds people as they just genuinely forget. You'll be surprised by how well the bags will protect the books, I've collected them when buried under slushy sow and they were fine as the bags were sealed. Territory needs recanvassing regularly, you can use the prEvious campaigns brochures to avoid buying too many, over a year after starting I'm still getting new customers. I recanvass maybe 20 houses each time so that people aren't irratated and deliver brochures to people who I know want a brochure every campaign.

Thanks Lozza! Is there a danger though in using previous books, I mean if customers order and that item is no longer available in the next campaign or something? I've been reading through this whole thread and I'm not sure I get the back book/front book creative ordering. Do the brochures change a lot from campaign to campaign?

I haven't placed my first order yet so I am sure I'll get there eventually.

I didn't even know about the credit check or credit limit thing either. I literally have no money so if I get a bunch of orders and have to pay Avon first I'm not sure I'll be able to. I wish my sl had told me about that. She basically showed me the little circle graph which shows you pay Avon after you deliver and collect money.

Does anyone accept paypal on their orders? I was thinking that I wouldn't take cheques, at least not at first. Even if someone is established customer they can still bounce a cheque without meaning to. I think if I offered paypal though I would have to get them to agree to pay before I delivered their order. I've done my schedule as Monday and Thursdays and the next delivery date is a Tuesday so I wrote on my order forms that I would deliver on the Thursday. I guess I could call them or drop a note when their order arrives and tell them to pay via paypal then. The money usually goes to you straight away so I would have it before the delivery day. I want to avoid them paying in advance in case their order is out of stock or doesn't arrive.

My other question is about product knowledge. How do find out about the products? The brand guides are really not helpful and the product descriptions on the Avon shop are not much more help.

I'm a professional make-up artist as well as being a beauty consumer for well over twenty years! As a consumer I generally like to know what's in my skincare, especially because I have very sensitive skin. I would like to be able to answer custom queries on ingredients especially if I have any customers with similar problems.

Additionally, I would also like to know which products to recommend for what conditions. I mean, I can kinda a guess on some things but to be honest the age guide thing isn't very helpful. For instance I am nearly 40 but I have oily skin that is very sensitive. For someone like me I wouldn't think either of the 30+ or 40+ ranges would be a good recommendation and would try the solutions range and one or two other items.

I just feel a bit in the dark when it comes to the skincare which I know is a big part of selling Avon. They tell you to buy demo products but as I said before I can't really afford to purchase anything upfront. I was hoping to buy a few samples with my first commission so I could at least give those out if I had questions about skincare.

At least I am comfortable with make-up and can usually suggest perfect colours and, of course, have no problem teaching someone how to use a make-up product. Perfumes I think will also be something I will try and push to compensate for failures in skincare knowledge.

On another note (sorry it's a long post, just so much to think about and learn when you start!), I went to the huge 99p shop and bought a few bags of wrapped sweets to put in with my next load of brochures. Thanks for the idea much earlier in the thread! I won't put in chocs because of dogs, but I figured boiled sweets would probably be ok in the plastic bag (which are just freezer bags from 99p shop as well) with the brochures. Hopefully it will at least get me my brochures back even if I don't get orders LOL.

I've got some wrapped chocs to put in with my orders when I deliver them and I plan to make some handmade thank you notes.

I also stapled one of my make-up biz cards ,which has my mobile and email on it, to all of the letters I wrote and put in each bag as well. Although, I was counting on people returning the letter w/card attached in the bag with brochure if they didn't order so I could pass them onto the next lot as I only had about fifty of them left. Here's hoping

Wow, I've said and asked a lot. Sorry. Thank you for being kinda to a newbie!

piglet25

I wouldn't ask people to pay through paypal because theres always the chance they could say they didn't recieve the items and get their money refunded and you wouldn't be able to prove they had had them

amandaj67

Have to agree, paypal is probably a no-no. Too much risk of them saying they hadnt recieved their order. The only way you can prove delivery is by having a tracking number which you wouldnt have!

The credit limit is about £200-£300 which gets doubled in your second campaign i think xx