MLMs - Scentsy, PartyLite, Younique etc.

mrsyardbroom

I did matched betting for a couple of days and put the absolute minimum investment into it. I immediately made £36 profit and got my original investment back. It could have been a great money spinner but I didn't feel comfortable with it. It felt wrong somehow and so I stopped.

I also did Avon for a short while to earn some money for Christmas. In the first month I sold more than any rep they've had in the area. I would have continued but it needed me to go door to door, in the dark, in an area that was noted for a higher crime rate. People kept warning me it was dangerous and my husband wasn't very keen on me going out there on my own and so reluctantly I gave that up. If you work with a lot of other people Avon is a good money spinner. The main problem I had was that they could never supply all the products.
I do affililate marketing now to earn some extra and this can bring in £100 a month or so. Often it's a bit more. I have earned £300 to £400 when I've put the work in on my website.

snickersbars

Why not try some survey websites as a hobby that will earn you a little bit of money? Some surveys can be quite boring, but generally I've found the ones on Prolific and YouGov to be less so.

monty-doggy

I know a lot of these companies have a bad reputation, but I make a good living from the bodyshop at home. There are ways it can be done without hounding your friends and family if you are prepared to put a little time in.

ashe

monty-doggy wrote: »

I know a lot of these companies have a bad reputation, but I make a good living from the bodyshop at home. There are ways it can be done without hounding your friends and family if you are prepared to put a little time in.

The trouble is most people that get invited to do things like body shop at home, scentsy etc are generally stay at home mums. I imagine you can make some good money out of them if you are good at sales, but by the time you spend time organising all your receipts, filing your tax returns, keeping money aside for paying your tax bill and NI contributions, report income earned to understand impacts to benefits etc etc you would be much better off taking up a part time direct sales role with commission, it would eat up less of your time and probably pay a lot better.

Conscious though that a lot of people make things like this work by just avoiding all the legal stuff like filing accounts and paying tax, which opens them up to additional risk.

monty-doggy

ashe wrote: »

The trouble is most people that get invited to do things like body shop at home, scentsy etc are generally stay at home mums. I imagine you can make some good money out of them if you are good at sales, but by the time you spend time organising all your receipts, filing your tax returns, keeping money aside for paying your tax bill and NI contributions, report income earned to understand impacts to benefits etc etc you would be much better off taking up a part time direct sales role with commission, it would eat up less of your time and probably pay a lot better.

Conscious though that a lot of people make things like this work by just avoiding all the legal stuff like filing accounts and paying tax, which opens them up to additional risk.

Hmrc actually make it really easy for small businesses now. It’s nit as hard or daunting as it used to be but I do get what you mean.

ashe

monty-doggy wrote: »

Hmrc actually make it really easy for small businesses now. It’s nit as hard or daunting as it used to be but I do get what you mean.

True, but you would still have to have some serious sales to make an hourly rate worthy of doing all the admin work and work that doesn’t create an income, diluting what your overall money earned per hour is. Majority of the target market would be under minimum wage easily. I believe there’s a stat around 95% of people that get involved in network marketing either only just break even or lose money. The 5% are people that are good at sales and would likely make a lot more in an actual sales role through salary earned and OTE commission, with less flux and no admin / down time

soolin

With apologies I am going to post this message on several threads that have been bumped - apologies if it looks spammy but I think it worth making a general note for newbies.

Whenever you post about these work from home opportunities you will get people contacting you trying to recruit you for their downline. I can only assume that various retailers like Avon, Younique, Body shop at home for instance have started to really push their agents into recruitment rather than selling, there is a general desperation across forums and on facebook of people desperate to sign up new people. Please before signing up to anything actually consider what you will have to do, and how many others you will have to recruit , never go into anything blind, always read reviews and understand what you are signing up for. Many of these schemes are no longer concerned with just selling products, it's all about increasing the number of other people you sign up for your team.

ashe

soolin wrote: »

With apologies I am going to post this message on several threads that have been bumped - apologies if it looks spammy but I think it worth making a general note for newbies.

Whenever you post about these work from home opportunities you will get people contacting you trying to recruit you for their downline. I can only assume that various retailers like Avon, Younique, Body shop at home for instance have started to really push their agents into recruitment rather than selling, there is a general desperation across forums and on facebook of people desperate to sign up new people. Please before signing up to anything actually consider what you will have to do, and how many others you will have to recruit , never go into anything blind, always read reviews and understand what you are signing up for. Many of these schemes are no longer concerned with just selling products, it's all about increasing the number of other people you sign up for your team.

This x1000

I watched a documentary on bbc the other week which showed how many of these organisations originate in Mormon culture in Utah, fascinating really. Makes a lot of sense too! They go on the mission for 2 years to promote their faith so they are used to promoting to strangers and the women culturally do not work so opportunities to work from home while raising kids gives them a huge target market.

I also read an article that many of these companies actively spend millions a year around the world lobbying governments to repeal pyramid selling laws. Think about that for a moment...they sell a product but are lobbying to continue as a business without the need for a product... mind boggling. :eek:

soolin

ashe wrote: »

This x1000

I watched a documentary on bbc the other week which showed how many of these organisations originate in Mormon culture in Utah, fascinating really. Makes a lot of sense too! They go on the mission for 2 years to promote their faith so they are used to promoting to strangers and the women culturally do not work so opportunities to work from home while raising kids gives them a huge target market.

I also read an article that many of these companies actively spend millions a year around the world lobbying governments to repeal pyramid selling laws. Think about that for a moment...they sell a product but are lobbying to continue as a business without the need for a product... mind boggling. :eek:

I saw that programme as well, it was absolutely fascinating. It's still on Iplayer for those interested:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p076n2hg/secrets-of-the-multilevel-millionaires-ellie-undercover

It really showed how the products were no longer the thing, it was all to do with recruiting and taking your percentage of sales from down the line. It had always struck me that if this was such a brilliant idea, why is facebook and all the groups rammed solid with desperate agents all trying to sign up others? Surely they would want to keep the small amount of customers for themselves?

monty-doggy

I think it all depends on the company and what the individual person wants. My first week with the bodyshop I earned £150 in commission and over £300 in free product.
Some people would be happy with that as a sideline income, others want more. There’s no pressure to recruit in this company if that’s not what you want. I do know there are lots of these companies that do push recruits,I’ve been on the receiving end of some hard sell recruitment and even when I’ve said no they pushed further lol.