Mary Kay Cosmetics Consultants – Helping Or Hurting Women? – Scam Or Legit?
Mary Kay Cosmetics and most Multi Level Marketing (MLM) companies say they offer the world’s greatest business opportunity which is based on selling products. Mary Kay Cosmetics $2 billion a year enterprise where hundreds of products are sold through word-of-mouth advertising. Mary Kay is another recruiting scheme in which they try to get their consultants to purchase a boat load of cosmetics and then resell them. Their hook is how can you sell cosmetics if you don’t have an inventory to sell?
I have heard from friends of mine that were former Mary Kay Consultants that the problem is that a consultant never has exactly what their customers need when the customer wants it. It is nearly impossible to predict at the level how many of each product you are going to need after the first few months. Hence, after the first few months, you end up making smaller orders at a much lower discount level on a more frequent basis. Furthermore, that lower discount level equates to a smaller profit margin for you.
What ends up happening quit often is that by the time the new consultants purchase their cosmetics, factor in the costs for promoting their business, delivering them or working with customers, it outweighs the small pofit earned. Also, the requirements for purchases are greater than most people can meet, hence most of the consultants wind up with a lot of unsold goods. Hence, the vast majority of the products sold to the consultants are never resold to an actual customer. Is it because the consultants really don’t try to sell? Perhaps, but a majority factor is that It’s because the products are of mediocre quality and are overpriced.
With the internet and large department stores in the mix, cheap substitutes for these cosmetics are everywhere and have similar if not better quality. Here’s something else to consider. Where are you going to find your new customers? Mary Kay encourages their consultants to begin with their friends and family and then branch out from there to strangers. Even the most supportive family and friends only need so many cosmetics. Hence, after an initial order when everyone generously buys some items to help you get started, it will be many months until they need to replenish.
Then the next step is moving on to strangers. You’ll try to rope in some of the people you meet through giving skin care classes into having a party and your friends and family will probably may also do that for you but their friends and family probably won’t. Ask yourself how many women you know are just desperate to get their friends together for a Mary Kay party, probably not too many.
Is Mary Kay Cosmetics a scam? I would say no. This critique about Mary Kay Cosmetics concludes that they are a lawful organization that allows individuals to generate an income by selling to their friends, family and anyone they can get in front of to try to grow their “business”. If you enjoy recruiting friends and relatives and hosting home event parties than this may be right up your alley.
Personally, I’ve completely avoided these types of programs altogether and have advised my friends and family as well as I have been able to make a comfortable living from the internet at home much more easily.