Usually with an MLM product, the product gets made in a factory, shipped to the main MLM warehouse, and then all the distributors get paid.
With Walmart type stores. The product gets made, goes through 2 or more 'wholesalers' gets shipped to the store's warehouse, where all the warehouse employees, and then the store employees get paid, plus sometimes vacation/sick day paid days and insurance, and raises every so often.
We won't even go into all the the 'little people' that each product has to go through before being in a presentable condition to be wholesaled.
There's really not much difference in MLMs than brick and mortar stores--it's just that, usually, a 'sales person' isn't showing you just one product (or a group for similar products) like a person in an MLM does.
Think of the thousands of products in Walmart vs most MLMs. And each one of those companies that represent each of those thousands of products have priced their product so that they can pay their employees and stay in business.
If I go into my local health food store, a clerk comes over and asks what I want. If I say "I'd like a C supplement, but don't know much about it" they take me to the correct isle and spend time pointing out the benefits/comparisons of this or that C product.
I've noted that they usually try--not always but usually--to steer me to the higher priced one, saying that it's a better product. I pick it up, follow her to the counter where she rings me up. I pay and go away happy.
Same thing with MLM products. I'm looking for something that makes me feel better, I run into a person that says "oh--this is a wonderful product" and proceeds to explain it's benefits/comparisons to other similar products, I buy it and go away happy. Both these people get paid.
One gets paid through their employer, one gets paid through the MLM company. One can get fired or laid off, the other may decide he/she doesn't want to be in business anymore. But that's THEIR choice, not the choice of the health food store owner.
Yes, usually the MLM companies products are priced higher. Why? Is it truly because 'so many people have to get their cut'? Or is it because they KNOW people pay more when they feel they are getting personal attention and a product from someone they 'know and trust'. Who screams about Mary Kay products, or Avon, or Tupperware, or Pampered Chef? No one!
Yet these products are all higher priced than what you would pay in a general store like Walmart. Why? Personal service, from people who are, generally, your friends that you trust.
Who screams about the price when they walk into Dillards to buy a pair of flip flops. No one. They certainly expect to pay more in Dillards than in Walmart. Are the flip flops that much different, better quality?
Nope. Just a name brand. Is that shoe with the Nike symbol that much better than a a regular athletic shoe? Nope. Just a higher priced brand with name recognition that people want to flaunt. No one forces anyone to buy any MLM product. Just as no one forces me to shop for my clothes in Dillards if I want to shop in Target. It's a choice we all make, and every company out there is spending millions on their marketing campaign, to be seen in a better light than their competitors, and thereby sell more.
It somehow triggers people's emotions when it's an MLM company that deals in health products. I don't hear many people yelling about Dr. Julian Whitaker's products, when he started making his own high priced products with his own company once he found out that his newsletter readers would buy because HE made them, rather than the way he use to tell people what OTC products they could buy that would do the same job as his products.
His claim? "I've put them all together in on product so you don't have to buy so many different bottles, try sorting them out for yourself.
Heck, you don't even have to go to the store anymore because I'll glady autoship them to you". It's a matter of choice. And of attitude.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)
Samala, Renee (Thanks Renee. Rob)
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