Avon and Similar Companies

[LittleSpirit02]

Has anyone here been a representative for Avon or a similar company? Curious if you found it worth while and what your experience was like.

[TheDuckRocks]

I was once an Avon lady and found it was not a fit for me. If you are looking for just a little next fun money these things can work out well. If you need money for the basics of life I found the not knowing exactly how much money I would be bringing in too stressful.

[Mrs Bus Driver]

I agree with TheDuckRocks, most people only make extra cash and not living expenses. The most successful selling Avon that I knew sold it to their co-workers. In other words you need a built in market. If you know lots of people that do or would buy Avon products and you think they will buy from you then go for it. Otherwise you'll have to sell door to door. So do you know a lot of your neighbors? How about friends and family? Do you have a job where you can leave the books in the lounge. Another thought my mom sold Avon years ago, she had to pay for her samples and she had to get people to pay for what they ordered or else she was stuck with it. Be sure you know the cost of doing business with Avon.

[buzznwoodysmom]

My sister in law did fairly well with Avon when she was selling it from her salon. She did it for extra money, and only after several of her clients asked if she knew anyone selling Avon. Still she only did it for a few years before calling it quits. Seems it wasn't enough extra money for her to make it worth the extra hassle.

[MstngDrvnDsnyLvr]

Most of these companies are set up so that you can make (sometimes) a little extra money here and there but not to give you a living wage unless you can recruit, recruit, recruit. The more uplines you have the better your percentage of money earned will be. (Classic Pyramid)

If you really want to make money, unfortunately, the best way is to head into the outside workforce.

[BriarRose0708]

I was into Mary Kay for a couple years, and while I loved the discount and their products (I still use them) I am just not a direct sales person. I disagreed with some of the business principles and I found my sales team director to be very pushy - she never was when I was her customer, but when I became her team member it was like she was a completely different person and treated me like her commission source (which I was) and not a person. There were also a LOT of hidden costs I didn't know about before I signed up that I wish I'd known about, like the cost of samples, shipping, taxes, etc. Most can be written off but when you don't have that much start up money to begin with it added up quickly and I had to sell more than what I anticipated to break even.

The upside??? I love meeting people and developing relationships. I had just moved to a new area at the time and networking was important for me to do so connecting with other women was really fun. I made about no money, and once I made back what I had put into it I just kept the extra product inventory I had and when that was gone, I was out.

If you do end up going with Avon, 31, Pampered Chef or Jamberry or whatever, I hope you have fun with it!

[TinkerbellT421]

I sold Avon for about a year. It's nice to have extra "play around" cash which helped me pay off a credit card bill, or have the extra dinner night out once a week but like others have said, it's difficult to be a full time, only that income source is tough. I didn't do it for that which worked out well for me, but it did end up being an additional full time job though. You have to find customers, pass out books constantly, follow up calls, enter orders, create invoices deliver products collect money deposit checks and cash, etc. it was an everyday constant thing even for the little money you make. Most products you only make 20-30% profit on and it takes a lot of sales to make anything worth while. I've thought about doing it again, but then I remember how much work it actually was. And then I found myself annoying friends cause your constantly trying to sell products, push books etc.

[Katzateer]

I did Pampered Pets and had a great time doing it. Made enough to get what I wanted from the product catalog but after a couple years my contacts didn't order enough to keep up with it. Same with Pampered Chef. We had a lot of fun for a few years with parties but it got to the point we were done. Didn't make a lot of money but enough to have a little extra. A friend sold Mary Kay and got a pink Cadillac and did REALLY well. She had a lot of recruits and that is how she made the big bucks. She worked her way up in the company in about 3 years and has worked for them 15+ years now.