To find this a bit crass?

[PeanutButterIsYummy]

Name changed for this one. For the second time in as many months I've been invited to a sales 'party' event by friends (I.E, they host a 'party' at their house with the intention of you buying items from them and they make commission from it). So for example one friend is selling books, and another is selling toiletries. Now I can sympathise that most of us need some extra cash at the mo but AIBU in finding it a bit crass to use friends as a means of making commission money? I know I can just politely decline the invites (which I have done for the record), or could just go to the party and not buy anything, but there's always the 'guilt factor' and expectation that you will buy something if you attend usually crap you don't want. I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of using friends to make commission money by guilt tripping them into buying stuff they probably don't even really want. Plus these events are always as boring as hell. Or am I just over-thinking this?

This is how these parties have always worked.

Yanbu
Appreciate times hard etc but I just don't like it either so there

YANBU - but they have gone on for years - I remember my Mum going to Tupperware parties.

I just refuse the invitation & say I'm already busy.

YANBU.

These things are horrible, and it only gets worse when you go to the parties because then you get pressured into having a party yourself.

People don't generally make actual money on them, they get discount off the product, so they usually want something. I usually just decline, but there's a few people at work who leave the catalog in the kitchen and you can order something if you want, and they still get the discounts without holding the actual party.

A friend of mine wanted to do her whole kitchen with new Tupperware, and put a whole bunch of her order in under different names and got quite a lot of credit in exchange for her 'selling' lol. Quite clever of her really.

It's an invitation, not a summons. Just say no.

YANBU I went to one at my neighbour's some time ago, I didn't want to decline because I was trying to make some local friends, I felt obliged to buy something so paid £18 for a flipping gravy jug. In two years the only communication I've had from her is an email when she has a sale on.

My boss's wife keeps inviting me to her parties for an expensive clothing brand. I think she has a lot of friends who are happy to go, she lays on loads of wine and the clothes are very nice.

I do feel awkward, though, she's been quite pushy but I can't afford the clothes and feel rather resentful that she's trying to get her hands on the hard-earned, pitiful wage her husband pays me. The last bit is grossly exaggerated but the point is still relevant.

The only time I feel really annoyed is when I don't realise that it's that sort of party. A couple of times I've turned up thinking I'm going to some sort of celebration. Very irritating to arrive with a bottle of wine for what you thought was going to be a convivial evening with an old friend and discover she's desperately flogging chocolate/Jamie Oliver tat/sodding Aloe Vera/children's books/make-up/sex toys (yeuch!)

Failing to make it clear that it's a selling party is a real friendship ender as far as I'm concerned.

I've had a couple of these parties for friends who were trying to get a business venture up and running. As a host, you can do quite well out of it, but I hate the thought that people might feel pressured to buy. On each occasion I stressed to all the guests, beforehand, that it was really just an excuse to have a get-to-gether, and that they didn't have to buy anything. I also made sure I put great food on, and the wine etc was flowing.

We had a laugh and people stayed for ages after the sales pitch had finished and been packed away, so it felt more like a girls night in than anything else. Don't feel like you have to go, or buy anything if you do. No one will mind.

YANBU. I've been invited to a candle one, bodyshop one and herbalife one in the last month. I made my excuses and went to none of them. I like candles and bodyshop stuff but I'm skint just now and I wouldn't touch herbalife shit with a bargepole even if I wasn't.

YANBU the candles are particularly bad as they are so bloody expensive.