‘It was just like a cult’: How selling ‘wonder shakes’ nearly ruined Shona’s life
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“My marriage was almost destroyed, my body was giving up, I was feeling isolated and alone. I was coming to terms with the fact that I had been sucked in.”It started when one of her clients, a family friend, talked about some “wonder shakes” that were helping her health issues. Initially skeptical, Shona tried the products to help with irritable bowel syndrome and weight loss.She saw an improvement in her health and suddenly, clients, friends and family wanted a taste of it too. Shona didn’t want to be involved in an MLM, but “accidentally fell into it” by helping a few friends order the product.Suddenly, she was cashing in.”The turning point was when I realised that I made the same amount of money in a five-minute text conversation with a friend (selling the products) than I had made the entire week doing spray tans,” she told SBS Insight.”I began to see this as a way I could set up my family for the future. So I went all in.”I didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, I filled up the sink, dunked my head in … and chugged it every day.”
Participants earn money from two potential revenue streams: commission from directly selling the product or service, and commission made by other sellers who the participant has recruited below them.
MLMs often make buying a certain amount of the product in order to sell it a requirement of moving up the organisation.Professor Gary Mortimer, an expert in retail marketing and consumer behaviour from the Queensland University of Technology, says MLMs and pyramid schemes are remarkably similar.”Unlike illegal ‘pyramid schemes’, MLMs do sell products that exist. However, many MLMs do focus on recruiting ‘downline’ and getting new consultants to buy products, rather than on actual sales to real customers.”In Australia, MLMs continue to thrive. Australian shoppers spend more than a billion dollars through MLMs each year, according to industry body Direct Selling Australia (DSA).Stephanie Tonkin, CEO of the government-funded Consumer Action Law Centre, says the cost-of-living crisis has driven increasing numbers of people to MLMs.”The promise of money on the side is appealing,” she said.But the reality is, MLMs, like pyramid schemes, are designed to favour people at the top.
“And because people in MLMs are independent contractors, there are no protections.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/article/positive-vibes-only-how-an-mlm-nearly-ruined-shonas-life/0roodn0ei.
