There’s no point in me working outside the home at the moment what with daycare costs. However, we are finding it somewhat difficult to make ends meet with only my husband’s income, so I am looking for alternative ways to earn money.
So I am calling the Avon lady later on today to sign up. Has anyone done this before? Is the time involved/money earned ratio reasonable? What are ways, in your or other’s experience, that I can maximize my earning potential? Even if I only brought in 500 a month or so, that would be a huge help. Is that a reasonable, attainable figure?
Any stories or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks. 
Before you sign anything, and especially before you put any money down, check ebay for the goods you’ll be selling. It isn’t uncommon for people to get into an MLM scheme, and wind up selling their goods on ebay for below cost, just to get something out of it.
I would run far, far away from the MLM schemes…Avon, Advocare, etc. Anything that requires you to buy product up front and then sell it to your friends and family who don’t really want it in the first place is just a good way for you to lose money in the long run. If you belong to a huge church or something where you have access to hundreds of people who might be interested in buying your product it might make a bit more sense but most people who try to sell this kind of stuff end up putting it in a box in the closet and losing the money they paid out on it. I used to have a roommate who tried to do this kind of stuff and it cost her (well, her parents since they paid for all of her wacky schemes) almost a thousand dollars over the year we lived together.
A friend who sells Avon hasn’t lost money on it, but she doesn’t make any either. She says she clears enough to pay for her own Avon stuff, but that’s about it.
With the economy the way it is, it seems like Avon and the like (even though it’s not expensive stuff) is one of the things that people will be cutting back on. Unless you have some customers already lined up, I’d look for something else, maybe something you can do when your husband is home to watch the kids.
My cousin’s wife recently started selling Avon. My first thought when I heard she was doing it was “Is there an actual need for more ‘Avon Ladies’?” I mean, I am not even 30, I work at home and I have three “Avon Ladies.”
Avon hooks you up with an Avon Web store now, when you become a seller. This pretty much negates the need for a local Avon Lady because if I want to buy something from my aunt in Arizona I can go to her Web store and buy my stuff and have it shipped - usually for free (they run a lot of specials).
I also question the potential profit margin on their items. I don’t buy much from them but the stuff I do buy is wildly inexpensive. Like I can buy 5 different things for under $20 total. If Avon gets a cut, then how much would my cousin’s wife get? It can’t be much.
I think Avon has good products and their stuff is cheap…but I can’t imagine how much you would have to sell each month in order to get $500 out of it. Imagine you got back a generous 25% of everything you sold. You’d have to sell $2000/mo. I don’t think buying their entire catalog would cost you $2000…I might be exaggerating but hopefully you get the picture.
I don’t think anyone is getting rich off of Avon. I think it’s more for the enjoyment of their products and a sort of “I buy so much stuff, I might as well be making a little bit back!” sort of mentality. Nothing wrong with that mentality, it’s just not a profitable one.
My sister did it in addition to her full time office gig. She said the effort it took to do the paperwork and organize the individual orders, etc., was a huge pain in the ass and not worth it.
I do not sell Avon, but this past Spring I started doing home parties for lia sophia, a jewelry company. I make 30% commission, get free jewelry, meet new, cool people, etc., etc. These things are all true, but…
The absolute hardest thing is to get someone to book a show. Once I show up, the jewelry sells itself, but getting someone to let me in their home is turning out to be the bad part. I have no “killer instinct” for pushing people into having parties, and that’s the only way to make a bunch of money at it.
I always ask everybody, and when they say “no” I ask why. I then respond to their objection with a counter-point. If they still say no, I stop there. The people who actually make a living doing this are the ones who never give up - who keep pestering and make calls and do the whole salesman bit.
That’s not my cup of tea, so I’ll never make the big bucks. It can be done - last night, I did a average show, and made about $120, which is about $30 an hour. If I did that five days a week, I’d be making about $30,000 a year for a 20-hour work week. That number can go up too, depending on if your customers are big spenders.
And, I will add that my sales have been poor lately, probably because of the perceived “bad economy”
But, I don’t want to discourage you - it is good fun, and you may very well find out you have that “sales” gene
Another problem with Avon is that it is territory-protected (or it was when I sold it). So unless I had people specifically call me and ask me to sell to them, I couldn’t just go prospect anywhere - I had to stick to my area.
The way a lot of people make money selling in Avon is to get their foot in the door at a business, and have a ‘helper’ who usually works at the business take the books, collect the orders and money, and deliver the products to the customers at work. It’s difficult to get a large regular route going because most people order irregularly, and you are still paying for brochures whether or not they order that week. Add to that the economy, the huge number of people already selling Avon, and territorial limits and it’s quite challenging to make the amount of money you woud like to make per month. If you can afford the slow start to get yourself established (many customers express reluctance to buy because they aren’t sure you’ll be around next month or next year - the dropout rate is quite high), the cost of brochures, samples, and misc items you need to stay in business until things pick up for you, and the time you’ll have to put into the business until you’re established enough that your district manager gives you areas that open up so you can expand your business, you can do okay. But you will work very hard and to get to the $6000 a year income level you will probably need helpers.
Avon does have an MLM arm and some people make horrendously large amounts of money by recruiting teams, but that sort of income is not usually attainable by the average salesperson.
Hope some of this helps; I liked selling and sometimes I think about starting up again just to pay for the things I would like to buy (but won’t buy because I’m too cheap) but then I remember the hassle and the paperwork and I change my mind.
ETA: You can get to the 50% commission level by selling a certain amount each week, and I think if you make President’s Club (which during my time was selling $10,000/year) you hold the 50% level all year long. But that may have changed since I’ve been gone.
My mom worked for Avon for 18 years, so I have a little different perspective. It is very possible to make money, but you have to treat it like a job. Mom started working for them in the early 80’s when the economy was in the dumps. She really WORKED at it and she did very well. After a few years she became a District Sales Manager, which is a full time (and then some) job. She made good money, had outstanding benefits and perks, and won two week long trips overseas while she worked for them. Ironically, the job that she took to pay my kindergarten expenses helped pay for my college in the form of a scholarship I won through the company.
This, of course, was before ebay and the Avon website, so I really don’t know what it would be like now, but there was definitely a lot of earning potential there in the past.
Ma sold it for a number of years. You buy sample materials if you want to give out samples. You do a lot of leg work, and use up hours of your time like other jobs. She made a little extra money, but not much. I’d say it was about the same as working a minimum wage job for 6 hours a week. At the end of the month back then she brought home less than $100 in profit.
I think the change in market dynamics makes Avon less attractive as supplemental income.
I don’t think you’ll lose money trying it so long as you don’t go hog wild on samples the first month.
Well, I guess I am glad I didn’t get around to calling the lady today. Back to the drawing board, I guess. We don’t have the money for this not to create income for us.