If people and employees haven’t gotten the message yet, businesses are in the business of making money. Anything else does not matter. You may see that attitude in the Body Shop MLM review.
One person asked why legitimate businesses doing great at traditional business plans and brick-and-mortar stores suddenly switch to an MLM business plan. The simple answer is that the latter plan helps them make more money.
To learn more about The Body Shop all you have to do is spend a few minutes reading our review. It may present you with some interesting facts that you should consider. Depending on whom you believe the founder of The Body Shop is either a saint or a witch.
You decide which after reading the information we present to you. Money changes people especially when there is enough of it handed to you.
What is The Body Shop?
The Body Shop started in 1976 under what were supposed to be very ethical rules. The founder Dame Anita Roddick supposedly got the idea for her new store by visiting a small one named the exact same thing when she was in California.
She went back to Britain and started her own business using that name and when she expanded to America bought the rights for the name from the original owners for about $3.5 million. That is a nice and polite explanation.
Business seemed to be going well. Then all of a sudden Dame Roddick changed business plans in 1994 and the ethics went out the window. So the story goes. She suddenly switched to an MLM business plan.
There is a lot of talk about the business ethics of the company once it made the leap to the ML business plan. They were accused of greenwashing. That is a term to describe presenting an ethical front and using green issues to lure people in under false pretenses
According to a 1994 financial statement, The Body Shop did not need to change marketing plans. They were making roughly over 400 million British Pounds at the time which was an 18% increase over 1993.
Basically, to answer the question, The Body Shop is a typical MLM corporation that uses traditional brick-and-mortar stores to make more money and convince people they are legitimate.
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How Does The Body Shop Work?
This company operates in a dual method. First, there is the traditional brick-and-mortar store which sells the many products this company produces. These stores are actually located where they have lots of sales reps trying to hold in-home parties to make a few dollars.
These parties give $50 to the host as well as some gifts for their trouble. Then the reps present their products to the guests encouraging them to buy. The guests get to try free samples to see if they want to buy the products.
Then to make things worse, the company has an online presence that sells the same products at cheaper than what the reps can. Also, the online store offers coupons, sales, and other discounts undercutting its sales reps at every turn.
We do not know what Dame Roddick thinks of this turn of ethical events as she passed away in about 1995. But according to some of the stories we read, she probably would have approved of the changes and reveled in them.
Her history is not as lily-white as the corporation would lead you to believe. It is possible that the Body Shop is owned by the same umbrella corporation that owns Avon but that is not confirmed at this time.
Can You Make Money with The Body Shop?
To be honest the answer to that particular question is ‘no’. Not that there isn’t a chance to make money selling these products but that the challenges are so steep and hard to overcome that you will most likely lose money not make it.
One of the challenges is that for you to sign up the minimum fee is $63 or 49 BP. That puts you in a hole right from the start and if you are invited to training it will cost you. Not only in time and gas as well as other expenses but in actual dollars. One rep was charged $70 for her one night of training.
Different kits cost different amounts so you know you are in trouble when you start out in a big hole and are unable to make a sale. Then there is the problem where the Body Shop put a traditional store in a small community of 250,000 people and then oversaturated it with sales reps.
Health and beauty have enough competition to fight let alone having it come from the company you work for. Your chances of making money by selling The Body Shop products are slim and none although some people do excel at it.
Ways to Make Money With The Body Shop
There are only 2 real ways to make money working for the Body Shop. The first is to sign up and buy the starter kit at whatever price they demand. Then you sell those products at retail keeping the difference as your ‘commission’.
That commission ranges between 25 and 30% if you can make a sale. Then the second way to make money is to recruit other people to be part of your downline. This is hard to do especially if your area already has more than enough people already recruited to sell those products.
Plus, it is difficult to find like-minded people who have the work ethic to go out and sell as you do. From what we can tell from their website, the price of their products seems reasonable but may be elevated when they get to the sales reps.
There is a third way to make some money and that is through the different rewards the company offers its reps. One is $10 for every 100 points you accumulate and you get 1 point for $1 you spend.
They will even throw in $10 on your birthday, enough for one meal at McDonald’s unless that restaurant has a sale going on. To make money you are going to put in more work than you anticipated.
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The Pros & Cons of the Body shop
Pros:
There are some pros about this company that may entice you to sign up and endure the treatment you get in return.
- Work your own hours
- Be your own boss
- High commission rate if you are lucky
- Nice products to sell and plenty of them
- The company has been around for 40 years or so
- Supposedly eco-friendly ingredients in the products
Cons:
In this case, the cons may outweigh the positives as there are a lot of unanswered questions about this company
- Lots of competition, even from the company’s traditional store and website
- Hard to get parties hosted
- Much effort to sell with little return
- Low BBB rating
- A greenwashing reputation
- Pay to play even though it may not be that expensive to start
- Pressure from your uplines to make sales
Any Negatives? Beware of Lawsuits
There seem to be a lot of negatives about this company and not just because it is an MLM corporation. The supposed ethical standards may have only been a ruse to trick people into buying their products or signing up and working for them
The company targets pre-16-year-old teens to get them to do peer-to-peer marketing and then lie about mothers providing their consent. But that is minor compared to the fact that the supposedly ethical founder stole the name from small businesses and paid them later for its use.
There are also a lot of allegations about the company’s status and other issues. There are supposed to be lawsuits filed against the company but we have not seen any verifiable records to prove that accusation true.
We have no problem with the owner paying the original Body Shop businesswomen some money for the name but the details behind that action may cause us some concern.
There are just too many unanswered questions that through a shadow over this company
Is The Body Shop an MLM?
In the traditional sense, yes the body shop is an MLM and is very legitimate. They operate around 300 brick-and-mortar stores and use its website to generate more sales. This is a very solid foundation, one that did not need the MLM format.
The question of legitimacy comes in when the company switched from the traditional business style and adopted an MLM strategy. There was no financial need to make this switch and the operation of this business style is certainly questionable and possibly unethical.
The products still are the same and how they are made is still under scrutiny but in the meantime, the company remains legit even though questions remain unanswered
Final Thoughts
It may not be nice but our first thought would be for you to shop at the store or website and forget the sales reps. Not that we want to be mean to those people but you get better deals at the former and you may motivate the sales reps to get better employment that treats them like humans.
Our final thought is to avoid working for this company. There are too many issues that are not answered to anyone’s satisfaction. That is the biggest drawback to working for them. There are better jobs out there for you to do. Check them out first to see if they fit your situation.
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