The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
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The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
1–10 of 106 posts
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#2This article doesn’t dig into the details, but these companies are really vicious. They aggressively recruit at my college and I’ve seen them to convince students to take what they would have spent on next semesters tuition and use it to buy “inventory” (i.e. more products than they’ll ever be able to resell) instead. These things ruin people’s lives
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#3This article doesn’t dig into the details, but these companies are really vicious. They aggressively recruit at my college and I’ve seen them to convince students to take what they would have spent on next semesters tuition and use it to buy “inventory” (i.e. more products than they’ll ever be able to resell) instead. These things ruin people’s lives
Absolutely -- it's that promise of financial freedom and products that "basically sell themselves" except you're stuck with the inventory because 10 people are working on the same friends to get them to buy Younique mascara.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#4I found « The Dream » podcast to be pretty good on the topic.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#5I wrote and deleted a long response. The short version is that they can be broken into two groups:
1. Distributors are paying well over wholesale and their margins are much closer to referral fees that really don't support the full retail effort.
2. Distributors are paying closer to wholesale but are buying junk that nobody actually wants. This is more like a ponzi scheme with items that theoretically hold value.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#6I wonder why MLM's are so rampant in the mountain west. I know "mormons" and "sales experience from missionary work" but the analysis can go deeper. From personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of these MLM people I've seen are moms. Could it be that that area is so sales heavy that stay-at-home moms want to run their own thing so they get into MLM on the side?
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#7When I worked retail sales in the 90s there was an Amway cult meeting nearby. Every few weeks, they would drop in after a pep-rally type thing and try to waste your time looking at the most expensive thing and talk about their amazing business. Then they'd drop the pitch (at the time it was about their e-commerce business).
Once you ran into them, you could spot them. It was a mix of desperate mid-life crisis guys looking for cash, clean-cut naive younger people, and diligent moms starting a business. Really sad.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#8I wonder why MLM's are so rampant in the mountain west. I know "mormons" and "sales experience from missionary work" but the analysis can go deeper. From personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of these MLM people I've seen are moms. Could it be that that area is so sales heavy that stay-at-home moms want to run their own thing so they get into MLM on the side?
Mormons tend run the companies and seed the initial demand.
Moms with built in communities are big markets. Wherever you have a big military, police/fire/prison presence you'll see these all over. Also certain church communities, certain freelancer type industries, (yoga contractors, photographers) etc.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#9I wonder why MLM's are so rampant in the mountain west. I know "mormons" and "sales experience from missionary work" but the analysis can go deeper. From personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of these MLM people I've seen are moms. Could it be that that area is so sales heavy that stay-at-home moms want to run their own thing so they get into MLM on the side?
It might also be a side effect of how maps in the mountain west and mid west tend to visually overemphasize the impact of those regions. They have low population density and large area, so they can be more sensitive to smaller target populations while also "popping" visually.
Re: The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps
#10This article doesn’t dig into the details, but these companies are really vicious. They aggressively recruit at my college and I’ve seen them to convince students to take what they would have spent on next semesters tuition and use it to buy “inventory” (i.e. more products than they’ll ever be able to resell) instead. These things ruin people’s lives
Absolutely -- it's that promise of financial freedom and products that "basically sell themselves" except you're stuck with the inventory because 10 people are working on the same friends to get them to buy Younique mascara.
Actually, MLMs are required to repurchase unsold inventory: https://www.mlmlaw.com/library/cases/mlm/ftc/amway.htm