Phoenix, Juice+, Ann Summers, Bluebella and the rest - What's the downside?

[Jon]

"Let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid!"

Seriously, I beginning to think that their franchise profiles on Facebook are just auto posting bots that no one is actually on the end of

 

[nicki]

I'm an Avon rep and have no problem telling anyone about the down sides!

1) Although it only costs £15 to 'buy in', there are targets to reach every campaign.

2) There are 18 campaigns a year, 16 of which are 3 weeks, 2 are 2 weeks which for me fall over the Christmas/New Year period. I do not give books to my customers during the 2 week campaigns (and also one campaign during the summer at the end of August. I deserve time off too!) as sometime they are due for delivery on Christmas/New Years Eve and everybody nearly is skint over that period. Those campaigns I only put in orders for things I won't get a discount on anyway.

3) Until recently they had a "90 day money back" returns policy, this has now dropped to 28 days to "bring them in line with the high street retailers". This is a problem for me. I used to hold on to people items for up to 50 days if they were having trouble paying or were going on holiday when I was planning on delivering just to make sure that I still got my 'commission' (although Avon refer to it as 'discount'). This worked great as it was great customer service. Now I have a few people who cancel the deliveries at the door because they know they have to pay me within 21 days.

4) Since I became a rep in 2011, the targets have increased and are set to increase again. To receive 20% on goods ordered you currently need to put an order in for £80 (increasing to £85 from campaign 15 which is September for me), to get a 25% discount you need to put an order in for £150 (increasing to £155 from campaign 15). For example, this campaign (orders I'll be delivering tonight) I have sold a total of £284.46 at Avon price, of that I earn £64.93 for 3 weeks work, averaging about 16 hours a week due to Avon making mistakes and me having to chase them to re-credit me with £59 which is the cost of good they claim they never received but they did. Out of the money I have earnt, I have to pay my expenses. Which is roughly £10 a time for catalogues, and if you want to buy Demo products they cost as well and you get no discount on these items/supplies. However I have noticed that sometimes a perfume will look cheaper in the rep magazine (selling for say £5) but in the catalogue it's selling for a price where it'll cost you less by the time you take into account your discount!

5) Cost of the catalogues has gone up and the quality of the supplies (paper bags, bags for the brochures, order forms) have in my opinion gone down over the past year. In theory you can re-use the catalogues in the next campaign for different customers, but in my case most people round here know everybody else if you get my meaning and having 2 different sets of books out was causing complaints as in one book an eyeliner might be £3 but in the other book the same product would be £6. They are now all on the same book and I've had no complaints of this nature since.

6) You have a set territory which in one way is positive as you know no other rep should be working that area. BUT you can also have "Friends and family" customers on other roads which means another rep could have certain houses on your roads which are great avon customers but will never order from you personally. Also, in my area, there are a number of permanently empty properties and student housing which I never deliver to as its a waste of my time/resources.

7) They say it 'fits in around your family & life' which is not entirely true. As someone said earlier, you end up having to work evenings and weekends. I work every Thursday without fail (unless I am 'on holiday') going out to see customers or putting my order through. I also work other evenings as well, maybe only 10 minutes here and there, but it still means I need to be aware of school events (like concerts / parents evenings etc when I won't be able to work). Until 18 months ago I worked almost every evening and weekends as well. I have now put a notice on my newsletters I put with every book that I do not work Fridays or Weekends making deliveries/collecting orders. I needed to get my work/life balance back so I could actually spend time with my daughter which was the whole point of me being an Avon rep! All the admin and sorting of orders I'm trying desperately to keep to school hours (8am-4pm in my case) but it doesn't always work out that way.

8.) Avon recommend you work on a cash only basis so when it comes time to pay your invoice you can either pay by Giro using the cash or do what I do, pay the cash into a separate bank account used solely for Avon and pay it online. I have heard of some people being charged to pay by Giro even though it says on the form there is no fee at the post office counter.

9) There is an 'elite club' you can become part of if your sales are high enough, called "Presidents Club". To become a bronze member you need to make sales of £6500 a year AFTER returns to get further 'perks' (not really worth it according to my sister who has hit that target once since 2007/08 when she became a rep). To reach Silver membership you need to hit sales of £15,500 which gives the same perks as bronze plus a few extra. Gold membership is £33,500 sales, same perks as before plus a bonus and the chance to apply for an incentive trip.

10) Some people can be down right abusive towards you. Then there are people who never pay. Over the past 3 years I have created a "black list" of at least 12 out of 200 houses who I will never deliver a book to as I am not willing to put up with their attitude.

You can of course become a 'leader' which then adds another layer to the pyramid scheme! But I'm reluctant to go there as I get enough complaints from some customers without trying to recruit people as well!!!

And breathe.... ;D

 

[FreeSwagSites]

Wow - that's a pretty comprehensive analysis.
Very illuminating.

Dare I ask this question before Jon does - why do you put up with it?
Unless I am misreading paragraph 4, you are earning under £1 per hour!
Or is that why you are here? To find an alternative and better was to earn?

 

[nicki]

I put up with it because I am a single mother and I believe being here to support my daughter is more important than working a 9 to 5 job. Childcare for a just teenager is non-existent especially during the school holidays around here and I am not happy leaving her home all day alone. Work in schools is almost non-existent as they prefer to use agencies or they get overwhelmed with responses (I used to volunteer in a school. For one teaching assistant position they had over 200 applications!). Agencies are not an option as I don't drive so would have to rely on public transport, which is not always an option. In the past (before I had my daughter) I have done shop and bar work, both of which left me having panic attacks, working in an office wasn't much better and I was being physically sick with that one. I'm not prepared to work shifts due to being the only adult in the house and no other out-of-hours childcare available. I haven't had an 'employee job' since October 1999 when I quit my bar job.

Avon allows me to earn some money, not much, but enough that I don't have to go signing on at the job centre and jumping through their hoops just to be told to apply for jobs in a nearby town which would cost me £15 a day in train fare and I am completely not suitable for. Already had that argument with my then advisor about that. I had a 10 year old daughter at the time, who they wanted me to drop at wrap around school care (£3 morning sessions, £5 after school sessions per day) which didn't start until 8am and finished at 5pm, then jump a bus/train to the city centre, a train from Liverpool to Chester to be in work at a shop in the centre of Chester for 8am at the latest, then at 5.30pm when I finished reverse the trip. Now I could have used a childminder but none locally would take a 10 year old even for school runs! Family couldn't have her as they all work or have school aged kids of their own! How they expected me to do it is beyond me! Relocating is not an option as I don't have the money to do it!

You are not misreading paragraph 4. Last year my total taxable income for the last financial year was £926 and I had under £300 other income which I didn't have to declare. I do get benefits and child support from my ex for our daughter so until universal credit comes in I'm in theory fine. BUT that is why I am here. I didn't realise there were so many working from home opportunities! As far as I knew there was Avon, Kleeneze and Betterware (all have reps around here) then surveys for PIN money. I'm here to find other ways of earning which I can do around my parental responsibilities. The one I really want to get my teeth sunk into is blogging. I have an idea, I have quite a bit of knowledge/content to do and there is a market out there in the UK, if not globally, for it. Its just getting my head around the design elements of wordpress which is holding me back ATM as I've found it very confusing. I have a "wordpress for dummies" book (Charity shop bargain) which I'm going to start reading this weekend. I've just been too busy doing my tax return & working to look at it.

Right now though, I need to go and eat, change into my 'uniform' and go out to deliver stuff.

 

[FreeSwagSites]

I completely respect your work ethic and desire to spend quality time with your daughter. I remember how hard my own mother had it when she was bringing up my sister and I.

Blogging is a great idea since it is so flexible.
Let me know if you need any help getting your head around Wordpress or any other aspect of blogging.

Have you signed up for swagbucks and whatusersdo?
I reckon you could easily earn £40-50 per month on those spending no more than an hour each day - and it's totally stress free.

 

[Jon]

Just wondering
How was Avon sold to you in the first place?
Was it from a team leader where everything is rainbows and unicorns etc or did you just sign up off their main website maybe?

 

[EllieHall]

Hi, I'm Ellie Hall and I'm the South Hill Designs girly, reading the account of the Avon rep above I'm really glad I chose South Hill when I was looking for a direct selling firm!

I guess I'll start with a little bit about myself. I used to be an HR analyst, until I was made redundant when I went on maternity leave (not regretted, the commute would have been too far for me to return). My husband has a very good job, so we made the decision that I would stay at home and become a full time mum. But while we can live on my husbands salary, I wanted a bit more money for fripperies. I also looked at the difference between childcare and commuting and my old take home pay, and concluded that unless my parents gave up work and moved home to be closer to us, the numbers would never add up.

So, when I was looking at options, I wasn't looking to make a fortune, or even a decent salary, I was looking for fun, flexibility and low risk with the chance to earn a bit of fun money while still taking care of my son.

So, with that in mind, let me tell you about South Hill Designs and why I love them.

The first thing about South Hill Designs is they are really scalar. There aren't any targets or minimum sales to meet your basic commission payments, you earn 20% on everything you sell no matter what.

The counter to that, there is an £7.96 monthly charge, which pays for a very slick ecommerce site. I think it's worth it, it's about what you'd pay to host your own ecommerce site, and they are doing all of the setup and maintenance for you, but you do need to keep it in mind.

Where the targets do come in is bonuses. You need to sell £300 a month to be considered active, and that makes you eligible for all the bonus schemes. That active criteria applies to everyone, even the ones heading massive teams, everyone sells.

You earn additional commission in 5% chunks, up to a maximum of 40%, which applies to all of your sales in the month retroactively. The 40% commission threshold is quite high and needs £3000 of monthly sales, but the 35% commission threshold is only £1200 and the 25% commission rate kicks in as soon as you go active.

You can also earn the higher commission bands based on your total downline sales that month, but it only applies to your personal sales.

In addition to that, you earn a percentage of your direct recruit sales, so it isn't a signing bonus but an ongoing thing, however you are expected to act as a leader/mentor to all of your downline, and failing to do so will get the bonus taken away. Both my recruiter and director (2nd upline) have been very involved, approachable and supportive since I joined.

So, that's the money side of things, now to what makes South Hill Designs really special, what they sell.

South Hill Designs sell customised floating locket jewellery and accessories, so while we have a catalogue it feels more like a jewellery wholesales catalogue than an Avon catalogue. You don't need any jewellery experience, and can sell perfectly well using the catalogue and helping your customers pick the charms with meaning to them, or you can act more like a small jewellery designer, and use the toolkit to make complete lockets to sell the vision.

You have a lot of freedom in how you sell, there's only two things you can't do - you can't place them in a retail shop for a customer to take to the till and just pay, and you can't sell online unless it's through your web store. You can blog, Pinterest and tweet away, but they have to buy by contacting you directly or going to the official website. You can also do stalls at craft fairs, fetes etc, you just need to have personal contact with the customer.

The company supports the direct selling/social sales model, and provides a very generous hostess reward package to help you, all of which doesn't impact on your commission a bit they offer 50% discounts, and a percentage of the jewellery bought at the social as points towards free jewellery. Of course, you can also be a hostess, and any sales you get from any source that isn't a social can be put into a social for you to earn you more stock for display, or just cheap presents.

In order to join, you need to buy a starter kit. There's one for about £60 including shipping that contains a complete locket and all the business materials you need to get started, and a bigger one which is about £200 including shipping that contains 4 lockets and loads of charms and background pieces, so you can design lots of unique looks and show off your jewellery and photography skills. The value of the kits in the jewellery alone is more than you've paid, and SHD promise in the T&C's that they will buy back any unsold jewellery that you've purchased in the last year if you decide to leave the company.

There's a great incentive program called 100 days to success, which gives you targets and some very good rewards to get you motivated to set up fast. The rewards are each worth about £90 and there are 5 you can earn.

The company recruitment spiel includes a line about earning a full time salary on part time hours. Do I honestly believe it? Yes! Although with the caveat that we're talking a full time minimum wage income, and by part time we mean nearly full time hours that you can flexibility and control over.

Does it suit people looking for a flexible little earner to fit around another job, or childcare responsibilities? Absolutely yes, no questions. That £7.96 is only 1 locket a month, so even if you only sold 2 a month you'd be in profit!

I think it's best for people looking for a creative outlet, who can truly love the flexibility and creativity of designing the jewellery, and know that they can make this work as a viable business without needing to import and hold loads of stock.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit. As you might have guessed from the fact I have a director as 2nd upline the company is very new, we entered pre launch in the UK in April, and only officially launched this month. We're expanding massively, pre launches just started in Mexico, Dominican Republic and Quebec, and we're sure the rest of Europe is coming soon, so this really is a chance to get in at the ground floor!

I'm sure posting links to my website will break a forum rule, but if anyone would like more information, or wants a truly special and unique present, then please PM or email me.

Ellie Hall
Independent Artist, South Hill Designs

 

[Jon]

Hi, I'm Ellie Hall and I'm the South Hill Designs girly, reading the account of the Avon rep above I'm really glad I chose South Hill when I was looking for a direct selling firm!

I guess I'll start with a little bit about myself. I used to be an HR analyst, until I was made redundant when I went on maternity leave (not regretted, the commute would have been too far for me to return). My husband has a very good job, so we made the decision that I would stay at home and become a full time mum. But while we can live on my husbands salary, I wanted a bit more money for fripperies. I also looked at the difference between childcare and commuting and my old take home pay, and concluded that unless my parents gave up work and moved home to be closer to us, the numbers would never add up.

So, when I was looking at options, I wasn't looking to make a fortune, or even a decent salary, I was looking for fun, flexibility and low risk with the chance to earn a bit of fun money while still taking care of my son.

So, with that in mind, let me tell you about South Hill Designs and why I love them.

The first thing about South Hill Designs is they are really scalar. There aren't any targets or minimum sales to meet your basic commission payments, you earn 20% on everything you sell no matter what.

The counter to that, there is an £7.96 monthly charge, which pays for a very slick ecommerce site. I think it's worth it, it's about what you'd pay to host your own ecommerce site, and they are doing all of the setup and maintenance for you, but you do need to keep it in mind.

Where the targets do come in is bonuses. You need to sell £300 a month to be considered active, and that makes you eligible for all the bonus schemes. That active criteria applies to everyone, even the ones heading massive teams, everyone sells.

You earn additional commission in 5% chunks, up to a maximum of 40%, which applies to all of your sales in the month retroactively. The 40% commission threshold is quite high and needs £3000 of monthly sales, but the 35% commission threshold is only £1200 and the 25% commission rate kicks in as soon as you go active.

You can also earn the higher commission bands based on your total downline sales that month, but it only applies to your personal sales.

In addition to that, you earn a percentage of your direct recruit sales, so it isn't a signing bonus but an ongoing thing, however you are expected to act as a leader/mentor to all of your downline, and failing to do so will get the bonus taken away. Both my recruiter and director (2nd upline) have been very involved, approachable and supportive since I joined.

So, that's the money side of things, now to what makes South Hill Designs really special, what they sell.

South Hill Designs sell customised floating locket jewellery and accessories, so while we have a catalogue it feels more like a jewellery wholesales catalogue than an Avon catalogue. You don't need any jewellery experience, and can sell perfectly well using the catalogue and helping your customers pick the charms with meaning to them, or you can act more like a small jewellery designer, and use the toolkit to make complete lockets to sell the vision.

You have a lot of freedom in how you sell, there's only two things you can't do - you can't place them in a retail shop for a customer to take to the till and just pay, and you can't sell online unless it's through your web store. You can blog, Pinterest and tweet away, but they have to buy by contacting you directly or going to the official website. You can also do stalls at craft fairs, fetes etc, you just need to have personal contact with the customer.

The company supports the direct selling/social sales model, and provides a very generous hostess reward package to help you, all of which doesn't impact on your commission a bit they offer 50% discounts, and a percentage of the jewellery bought at the social as points towards free jewellery. Of course, you can also be a hostess, and any sales you get from any source that isn't a social can be put into a social for you to earn you more stock for display, or just cheap presents.

In order to join, you need to buy a starter kit. There's one for about £60 including shipping that contains a complete locket and all the business materials you need to get started, and a bigger one which is about £200 including shipping that contains 4 lockets and loads of charms and background pieces, so you can design lots of unique looks and show off your jewellery and photography skills. The value of the kits in the jewellery alone is more than you've paid, and SHD promise in the T&C's that they will buy back any unsold jewellery that you've purchased in the last year if you decide to leave the company.

There's a great incentive program called 100 days to success, which gives you targets and some very good rewards to get you motivated to set up fast. The rewards are each worth about £90 and there are 5 you can earn.

The company recruitment spiel includes a line about earning a full time salary on part time hours. Do I honestly believe it? Yes! Although with the caveat that we're talking a full time minimum wage income, and by part time we mean nearly full time hours that you can flexibility and control over.

Does it suit people looking for a flexible little earner to fit around another job, or childcare responsibilities? Absolutely yes, no questions. That £7.96 is only 1 locket a month, so even if you only sold 2 a month you'd be in profit!

I think it's best for people looking for a creative outlet, who can truly love the flexibility and creativity of designing the jewellery, and know that they can make this work as a viable business without needing to import and hold loads of stock.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit. As you might have guessed from the fact I have a director as 2nd upline the company is very new, we entered pre launch in the UK in April, and only officially launched this month. We're expanding massively, pre launches just started in Mexico, Dominican Republic and Quebec, and we're sure the rest of Europe is coming soon, so this really is a chance to get in at the ground floor!

I'm sure posting links to my website will break a forum rule, but if anyone would like more information, or wants a truly special and unique present, then please PM or email me.

Ellie Hall
Independent Artist, South Hill Designs

Hi

and

http://www.themoneyshed.co.uk/index.php?topic=110.0

 

[nicki]

I completely respect your work ethic and desire to spend quality time with your daughter. I remember how hard my own mother had it when she was bringing up my sister and I.

Blogging is a great idea since it is so flexible.
Let me know if you need any help getting your head around Wordpress or any other aspect of blogging.

Have you signed up for swagbucks and whatusersdo?
I reckon you could easily earn £40-50 per month on those spending no more than an hour each day - and it's totally stress free.

I'm actually looking into various things atm. I used to do surveys until they were coming out of my ears but wasn't earning very much at all, but that was about 6 years back. I stopped doing them as I was studying through the Open Uni as well as doing an NVQ and volunteering at the school (part of my NVQ) so there just wasn't enough hours in the day lol

What I really need to work on now is my time management skills. I used to have no problems getting everything done, but now I just get bogged down in stuff or get distracted by other things. I'm working on this, and slowly making progress. In fact I've dedicated today to reading these forums as I need some none Avon or sorting out my DIY list time. The house hasn't been decorated for nearly 10 years and its very shabby and depressing to be stuck in all day. My landlady has given me money to decorate it, but it takes some planning to make sure I get everything that is needed for each room at the cheapest price so I can make the £250 budget stretch through 6 rooms and outside!

 

[nicki]

Just wondering
How was Avon sold to you in the first place?
Was it from a team leader where everything is rainbows and unicorns etc or did you just sign up off their main website maybe?

It was actually my sister who recommended it. At the time she was doing really well with it (easily made president club and was in the top 50 sellers for our area), and where she lives tend to be people with more disposable income. I knew it was hard work in all weathers (I was out in a thunderstorm this morning, but I was already soaked so I just kept going to the last customer ;D ) but it was to fit around my uni courses and having my daughter. I knew some of the downsides, but even my sister has said I've met more nasty customers and have a tougher territory than she had. She's actually more or less stopped now. She's been really ill so was selling the products on ebay instead of doing territory but there is now so much competition on there she's no longer making enough profit to make it worth while by the time you take into account packaging, postage cost, petrol to get to the post office etc.

 

[Jon]

Just wondering
How was Avon sold to you in the first place?
Was it from a team leader where everything is rainbows and unicorns etc or did you just sign up off their main website maybe?

It was actually my sister who recommended it. At the time she was doing really well with it (easily made president club and was in the top 50 sellers for our area), and where she lives tend to be people with more disposable income. I knew it was hard work in all weathers (I was out in a thunderstorm this morning, but I was already soaked so I just kept going to the last customer ;D ) but it was to fit around my uni courses and having my daughter. I knew some of the downsides, but even my sister has said I've met more nasty customers and have a tougher territory than she had. She's actually more or less stopped now. She's been really ill so was selling the products on ebay instead of doing territory but there is now so much competition on there she's no longer making enough profit to make it worth while by the time you take into account packaging, postage cost, petrol to get to the post office etc.

So are you not interested in doing any other franchise then? Do you have to pay any money to leave Avon at all?

 

[Jon]

Hi, I'm Ellie Hall and I'm the South Hill Designs girly, reading the account of the Avon rep above I'm really glad I chose South Hill when I was looking for a direct selling firm!

I guess I'll start with a little bit about myself. I used to be an HR analyst, until I was made redundant when I went on maternity leave (not regretted, the commute would have been too far for me to return). My husband has a very good job, so we made the decision that I would stay at home and become a full time mum. But while we can live on my husbands salary, I wanted a bit more money for fripperies. I also looked at the difference between childcare and commuting and my old take home pay, and concluded that unless my parents gave up work and moved home to be closer to us, the numbers would never add up.

So, when I was looking at options, I wasn't looking to make a fortune, or even a decent salary, I was looking for fun, flexibility and low risk with the chance to earn a bit of fun money while still taking care of my son.

So, with that in mind, let me tell you about South Hill Designs and why I love them.

The first thing about South Hill Designs is they are really scalar. There aren't any targets or minimum sales to meet your basic commission payments, you earn 20% on everything you sell no matter what.

The counter to that, there is an £7.96 monthly charge, which pays for a very slick ecommerce site. I think it's worth it, it's about what you'd pay to host your own ecommerce site, and they are doing all of the setup and maintenance for you, but you do need to keep it in mind.

Where the targets do come in is bonuses. You need to sell £300 a month to be considered active, and that makes you eligible for all the bonus schemes. That active criteria applies to everyone, even the ones heading massive teams, everyone sells.

You earn additional commission in 5% chunks, up to a maximum of 40%, which applies to all of your sales in the month retroactively. The 40% commission threshold is quite high and needs £3000 of monthly sales, but the 35% commission threshold is only £1200 and the 25% commission rate kicks in as soon as you go active.

You can also earn the higher commission bands based on your total downline sales that month, but it only applies to your personal sales.

In addition to that, you earn a percentage of your direct recruit sales, so it isn't a signing bonus but an ongoing thing, however you are expected to act as a leader/mentor to all of your downline, and failing to do so will get the bonus taken away. Both my recruiter and director (2nd upline) have been very involved, approachable and supportive since I joined.

So, that's the money side of things, now to what makes South Hill Designs really special, what they sell.

South Hill Designs sell customised floating locket jewellery and accessories, so while we have a catalogue it feels more like a jewellery wholesales catalogue than an Avon catalogue. You don't need any jewellery experience, and can sell perfectly well using the catalogue and helping your customers pick the charms with meaning to them, or you can act more like a small jewellery designer, and use the toolkit to make complete lockets to sell the vision.

You have a lot of freedom in how you sell, there's only two things you can't do - you can't place them in a retail shop for a customer to take to the till and just pay, and you can't sell online unless it's through your web store. You can blog, Pinterest and tweet away, but they have to buy by contacting you directly or going to the official website. You can also do stalls at craft fairs, fetes etc, you just need to have personal contact with the customer.

The company supports the direct selling/social sales model, and provides a very generous hostess reward package to help you, all of which doesn't impact on your commission a bit they offer 50% discounts, and a percentage of the jewellery bought at the social as points towards free jewellery. Of course, you can also be a hostess, and any sales you get from any source that isn't a social can be put into a social for you to earn you more stock for display, or just cheap presents.

In order to join, you need to buy a starter kit. There's one for about £60 including shipping that contains a complete locket and all the business materials you need to get started, and a bigger one which is about £200 including shipping that contains 4 lockets and loads of charms and background pieces, so you can design lots of unique looks and show off your jewellery and photography skills. The value of the kits in the jewellery alone is more than you've paid, and SHD promise in the T&C's that they will buy back any unsold jewellery that you've purchased in the last year if you decide to leave the company.

There's a great incentive program called 100 days to success, which gives you targets and some very good rewards to get you motivated to set up fast. The rewards are each worth about £90 and there are 5 you can earn.

The company recruitment spiel includes a line about earning a full time salary on part time hours. Do I honestly believe it? Yes! Although with the caveat that we're talking a full time minimum wage income, and by part time we mean nearly full time hours that you can flexibility and control over.

Does it suit people looking for a flexible little earner to fit around another job, or childcare responsibilities? Absolutely yes, no questions. That £7.96 is only 1 locket a month, so even if you only sold 2 a month you'd be in profit!

I think it's best for people looking for a creative outlet, who can truly love the flexibility and creativity of designing the jewellery, and know that they can make this work as a viable business without needing to import and hold loads of stock.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit. As you might have guessed from the fact I have a director as 2nd upline the company is very new, we entered pre launch in the UK in April, and only officially launched this month. We're expanding massively, pre launches just started in Mexico, Dominican Republic and Quebec, and we're sure the rest of Europe is coming soon, so this really is a chance to get in at the ground floor!

I'm sure posting links to my website will break a forum rule, but if anyone would like more information, or wants a truly special and unique present, then please PM or email me.

Ellie Hall
Independent Artist, South Hill Designs

Thanks for the story Ellie (I've sorted your Sig btw)

Quite the story there,

Can I ask, did you pay for the £200 pack upfront then or the cheaper on?

Did you feel confident about paying that money upfront?

I know you say that selling £7.96 is only 1 locket a month but even if you do that, that's nowhere near a fulltime wage (which I would call £1000 a month if I am honest)

What is the most you have even bought in each month in profit and what do you bring in on average?

 

[EllieHall]

Thanks for the story Ellie (I've sorted your Sig btw)

Quite the story there,

Can I ask, did you pay for the £200 pack upfront then or the cheaper on?

Did you feel confident about paying that money upfront?

I know you say that selling £7.96 is only 1 locket a month but even if you do that, that's nowhere near a fulltime wage (which I would call £1000 a month if I am honest)

What is the most you have even bought in each month in profit and what do you bring in on average?

Thank you for sorting my sig!

I only joined mid June, right at the end of pre launch. I have £300 of sales so far this month (£60 profit), and I haven't actually booked a single social! My team leader is currently coaching me to help me book them, all of my sales have been via social media. The more experienced sellers from other direct selling backgrounds are seeing sales between £200-400 a social, and this is a fairly quiet time for us since jewellery sales pick up sharply with the Christmas gift market. For your full time wage you'd want to be around that £3000 mark where the 40% kicks in, on a pessimistic outlook that's 15 socials a month, or one every 2 days. Is that achievable at the start - probably not, but I think it is achievable if you're actually working it full time to secure social leads and you've got an established network.

I paid for the £200 pack, I'm currently wearing a locket that I love which I claimed out of it that costs about £80 retail, I wouldn't have picked this if I didn't love the jewellery. You certainly don't need to, but I knew I wanted to do this as much to design as to make the money, and the larger kit has the components to design.

I didn't have any reservations about paying the kit cost up front, the buy back promise certainly helped with that. But I'm also not struggling for cash, so finding that £200 was comparatively easy, I can see if you're budgeting tightly it would be harder.

I don't know if anyone does SHD as a full time job, everyone on my team is either doing it on top of another job as an extra earner, or is a full time mum like me trying to fit work in around their children. I know my leader is planning to quit her day job, but she's a favourite for the first UK director so that's far more on her downline strengths than her sales, although I do know she's broken £2000 monthly sales before during the pre launch.

 

[Jon]

Just trying to get an idea of effort and time with thee things

how many man hours do you have to put in to get that £60 profit?

Do you now think it would be easier just to generate £60 online via another money making method instead of filling the coffers of those further up the food chain?

 

[EllieHall]

For that £60, maybe an hour a day doing photographs and updating my social media sites, probably not even that if you take out the time I'm distracted and reading friends posts instead

I have a second online job I make about £100 a month writing SEO articles, this involves a lot less effort than that!

The biggest thing about this for me is it's actually fun and engaging, and it certainly involves less effort and time than filling in a bazillion surveys while I fall asleep

 

[FreeSwagSites]

For that £60, maybe an hour a day doing photographs and updating my social media sites, probably not even that if you take out the time I'm distracted and reading friends posts instead

I have a second online job I make about £100 a month writing SEO articles, this involves a lot less effort than that!

The biggest thing about this for me is it's actually fun and engaging, and it certainly involves less effort and time than filling in a bazillion surveys while I fall asleep

What is the rate of pay for writing the SEO articles? Where do you get the work? Have you ever thought of setting up your own blog site instead of (or as well as) writing for others?

 

[EllieHall]

For that £60, maybe an hour a day doing photographs and updating my social media sites, probably not even that if you take out the time I'm distracted and reading friends posts instead

I have a second online job I make about £100 a month writing SEO articles, this involves a lot less effort than that!

The biggest thing about this for me is it's actually fun and engaging, and it certainly involves less effort and time than filling in a bazillion surveys while I fall asleep

What is the rate of pay for writing the SEO articles? Where do you get the work? Have you ever thought of setting up your own blog site instead of (or as well as) writing for others?

£10 for 500 words, I have one company that I get a regular chunk from. I can write each in less than an hour, and do two an hour if I'm familiar enough with the subject to do it without research. I'm slowly getting more articles each month, I started with 5, went to 10 and this month I've got 12.

Ironically, I would blog but I have no idea what to write! The articles come with built in inspiration I'm in the process of bringing my jewellery business onto Pinterest, and I need a website I have full control over to link in fully, so I'm probably going to add a blog for that to my facebook site.

 

[nicki]

So are you not interested in doing any other franchise then? Do you have to pay any money to leave Avon at all?

Not much point in doing other franchises, there is already a kleeneze rep, so betterwear is also out. One of the conditions of Avon is that I don't work for another company which sells make-up/fragrances so that rules out a chunk of business. I tried getting my sister customers when she was a phoenix rep but there was no interest (asda at the bottom of the road selling cards for 29p kind of kills that sort of business!), "party" ones are not my thing (and ann summers is definitely a no-no due to my daughter :-X ). My biggest problem in direct sales is that a lot of people around here are on benefits, retired or are students so are skint. That's why I'm looking at other income sources.

You don't have to pay to leave avon, but you obviously have to settle any outstanding invoice in full. My sister is trying to leave her account ticking over as a personal account but our new upliner (That would be our 4th or 5th since 2011!) keeps pestering her to order books to put out to customers, or put orders through for demo items. Apparently she called her 3 times the other day, whereas she's left me alone for the most part. I can see my sister giving her a mouthful and telling her where she can put avon if it carries on much longer. The upliner appears go be ignoring my sister telling her she hasn't done territory in 2 years due to ill health!

 

[Jon]

Re: Phoenix, Juice+, Ann Summers, Bluebella and the rest - What's wdownside?

uplines


downlines

I know these franchises aren't for me, infact to be honest, I think the products they sell and the way they go about doing them are just so archaic it seems the custom is just going to get lower and lower.

Things have moved on, supermarkets now sell EVERYTHING near enough to most people go online in the first instance to source a product. Would I ever buy anything from a catalog or sales person at my door, no, but then I am a man and maybe not the target audience.

I would hazard a guess that most of your customers are women, housewives maybe..

It seems you guys have to do the hard slog and come up with the original ideas to get sales and meet targets and you are all doing it for someone else. If you have a natural skill to sell things then take that talent and maybe use it on Blogging or make a website yourself (or facebook group). source the products and sell them via that and take all the profit.

 

[FreeSwagSites]

Re: Phoenix, Juice+, Ann Summers, Bluebella and the rest - What's wdownside?

uplines


downlines

I know these franchises aren't for me, infact to be honest, I think the products they sell and the way they go about doing them are just so archaic it seems the custom is just going to get lower and lower.

Things have moved on, supermarkets now sell EVERYTHING near enough to most people go online in the first instance to source a product. Would I ever buy anything from a catalog or sales person at my door, no, but then I am a man and maybe not the target audience.

I would hazard a guess that most of your customers are women, housewives maybe..

It seems you guys have to do the hard slog and come up with the original ideas to get sales and meet targets and you are all doing it for someone else. If you have a natural skill to sell things then take that talent and maybe use it on Blogging or make a website yourself (or facebook group). source the products and sell them via that and take all the profit.

I'm sure you'd look lovely in a diamanté charm bracelet Jon.

I used to buy lots of things from catalogues when I was a kid and I remember the Avon lady visiting my Nan and selling her some pretty awful smelling perfume - I hope the products have improved since then.