Another Multi-Level Marketing business has bit the dust! Or rather, has changed business models. Pure Romance, a company that sells skincare and “adult items” recently announced that they are moving from an MLM business to an “Omnichannel business.” That’s right – Pure Romance is no longer an MLM. What does that mean for consultants and customers?
What is an Omnichannel Business?
Pure Romance is touting the shift to an Omnichannel business as one designed to meet the changing needs of the market. But basically, what it means is that you can buy products in multiple ways from the company – in person, directly from a consultant, or online. It just means that they’ll have multiple sales channels.
How is this different from how you can currently buy products? It isn’t. You already could buy in multiple ways. I think the argument is that the traditional “party” sales method just doesn’t work anymore (which is true), so this is officially branching out from that. Except that Pure Romance consultants already did this.
What does this mean for consultants?
Depending on where people are in the company, this is either a positive thing or a very negative thing. I have seen commentary from a few different Pure Romance consultants, and it’s been interesting to see the diversity in the opinions.
I had my suspicions that something was up with the company because I saw that a few pretty high-level consultants who made their livings through Pure Romance had suddenly taken on other jobs – not other MLMs, but traditional jobs. One person probably wouldn’t have raised my eyebrows, but I saw two people I knew were high up in the company suddenly had new jobs over the past few months – and that seemed unlikely to be a coincidence.
I have also seen on the AntiMLM subreddit that there are some consultants raging against the company. Apparently, this change was officially announced at the convention (I think the higher-ups already knew), and the consultants paid to be there and suddenly found out that all the money they were raking in from their downlines was going to stop. Admittedly, I get why they were mad – but they weren’t exactly in a legitimate business to begin with.
Most consultants weren’t making money from downlines, so nothing changed for them. I haven’t been able to access their new pay plan yet, but I suspect that there is a recruiting bonus for bringing someone else into the company, but it is a one-time thing, and not based on what that person buys or sells. I don’t have a problem like that – a lot of companies have this sort of recruiting bonus if you refer someone else to the company. In fact, for most people, this is a good change – they’re no longer spending their time trying to get others to join the company so they can make more money off of them, and they’re not forced to keep up arbitrary sales numbers in order to get those downline paychecks.
Does this mean Pure Romance is a Good Business?
So how do I feel about Pure Romance? I’m still not a huge fan – from what I’ve seen, you can buy things of better quality for less money. But I am hoping this means that it’s a less predatory company. Their new plan starts today, so only time will tell how this affects the business. I’m sure some consultants will bail, but I bet a lot will stick around. Their bottom line doesn’t change.
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Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
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