Tropic is not a small business?

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Friend on facebook is a Tropic seller. Has posted an image essentially promoting that people should buy from small local businesses - then put a spiel about when she is taking orders etc.

Tropic made over 20 million last year.

That's not really what the buy local/small business thing is about really is it?

At the end of the day it's up to people where they want to spend their money and I won't say anything, but just so tempted to say that a multi million pound MLM business is not the same as someone running their own local business.

@Hollachica Your friend is not making a good living selling Tropic. She is either lying about her income from this product, or she is making a living off of a ‘downline’ of other sellers who she lies to and bullies into spending their own money on product with false promises of future earnings. There is no moral MLM and this is not my opinion, it is a fact.

MLM businesses are ILLEGAL in the UK. Tropic is half owned by sir Alan Sugar and Susan Ma. It is consistently rated as one of the fastest growing private British beauty companies in the Sunday Times and in fact Susie Tropic and Sir Richard Branson were feature in a full 2 page Sunday Times supplement last Sunday. I highly doubt that 2 of the most well know British business men in the UK would stand with MLM Company.
Your friend bought a small business in a box. She spent under £200 on that . For that she receives over £400 (retail) of merchandise marketing and business materials (catalogues, and stationery) and a completely free and website with her name and photo which requires no maintenance and is updated at absolutely no cost ever. So if she wanted to only promote and drive her business through the web site she would never have to pay for anything else. Tropic do not tell you you must do anything. In fact you also have access to unending amount of professional marketing images and bulbs of different kinds which you can share in any way and this include sharing Tropic posts with your own link to your website. This access is what you also have paid for and never have to again. If you only then buy the skincare for yourself you can order it at a 25% discount.
You do not have to order any minimum amount whatso ever! If you sell products through your website customers pay the retail price and delivery is to their door, Tropic then send you an email of the order and pay you 25% of each and every order from your website once a month again No Minimum and a detailed record for your records! If your friend decided she wanted to earn more she can in lots of ways of her choosing but like any small self employed business she's the only person who can make that happen and only if she wants to there isnt anyone to tell her she must do anything. Of course her mentor will support her in answering questions like how or where do I find but her mentor will never tell her she must. If your friend wants to earn more and she does, (but theres nothing to say she has to), her mentor has exactly the same business exactly the same commission, but if she wants to stay a mentor or subsequently manage a team she must make a minimum herself and if she does and she mentors a few who also want to make more commission there are fractionally higher percentages on the total sales you make not the members of your team and again this bonus is complete dependent on your performance not individuals and paid and accounted fully in commission by Tropic.
We Are Ambassadors of the brand we have bought into to make whatever profit or not if we only want a discount we put our minds into. We are empowered with the tools and incredible support to do it lastly if you want to sell products the customer can pay in a variety of ways so Ambassador will not need to buy for customers to be reimbursed. We have incentives and 2 product launches a year which if you sell within a period on the run up you can qualify to get free or at a discount but again you do not HAVE TO buy a thing!

@Jjj2019 you poor, deluded fool. You’ll think back on this and be really embarrassed one day. I just hope you don’t drag too many others down with you.

No @Jjj2019 - pyramid schemes are illegal in the UK. MLMs aren't. They are based on recruiting people to sell the product which is exactly what Tropic does

@Jjj2019 MLMs are not illegal in the UK. You're confusing them with pyramid schemes, which isn't surprising as they're practically identical; except yours comes with hand cream.

For anyone wondering if it's possible to earn good money from selling Tropic, here's a link to the payment structure c/o The Talented Ladies Club

Short version is that the 'compensation' is heavily recruitment-based, and you need to sell a minimum of £250 worth of products every single month to stay active, in order to make £62.50 every month.

On a personal note, I was at a hotel a few months back that had a Tropic conference on at the same time - they were all in the bar later. Every. single. time. I went to the bar, someone started chatting to me, told me how awesome Tropic was, and then tried to recruit me.

The amount of work needed to sell £250 worth of overpriced MLM potions that are also being sold by thousands of other people in a completely saturated market would easily make that £62.50 work out to far less than minimum wage. There are two sorts of people in every group of 1000 MLMers: 999 who are losing money or, at best, scraping together a few pounds every month for many hours of work, and 1 who is profiting of of the other 999. Every MLM is a nasty scam and a legal way for the immoral and dishonest to take advantage of the stupid and gullible.

dickie I had a similar thing happen with Forever Living - their conference was at my workplace. I just wanted to get to my office but had to run the gauntlet of reps thinking I was either one of them, or among if I was interested in joining them.

@Jencrewe28 thanks Jen, I had assumed that you had stock that sold in your premesis like hairdressers have the products they use in stock to sell to clients.

A Tropic rep elbowed her way into a ladies' event at my community centre a few weeks ago. I was really annoyed when she zeroed in on an acquaintance of mine who is very obviously vulnerable, and tried to convince her to sign up. Fucking sharks, the lot of them.

If anyone's interested in the morality of MLMs and their corporate structure there's a podcast called 'The Dream' which is very informative. They are essentially pyramid schemes disguised as legitimate companies. In the US the FTA are beginning to (finally) investigate some, and have fined a few companies in the last few years for operating as pyramid schemes.

I'm at the number of people on here who are totally onboard with the idea of an MLM & supportive of it. Look up MLMs, educate yourselves and check how similar they are to pyramid schemes...

They're legal but awful and there is growing awareness of how much of a scam they are.

Thank you all for your votes and comments - almost unanimous.

This is the picture posted along with a bit about getting your order in and then the ubiquitous bit about how much good tropic do in the world.

I badge these schemes together with politics and religion. They all think they are selling the best thing since sliced bread and pity the poor uninformed who must be converted/recruited.

This drives me mad. I have a friend who sells it, and since about month two is claiming all their foreign holidays are paid for by her #girlboss #livingmybestlife tropic sales. That and all the overseas 'treats' etc.

#bullshit

For one, I don’t get it. I got some Tropic products I got at a fair. No one tried to recruit me or pester or anything.

To me it’s the same as a local, family owned corner shop selling Coca Cola. It’s made by a huge international business which has been ‘brainwashing’ with adverts for decades. The corner shop is still a local business to me, though.

It's not the same as a corner shop unless that corner shop is part of a franchise and only sells the goods of one manufacturer and has to hand on most of his or her profits to the manufacturer.

A corner shop or craft business or other small trader etc take all the risk. They develop their own business plan, pay for their stock at the rate they negotiate or make their own stuff and are responsible for their own premises, business plan, marketing etc. They may also be employing people and paying them directly from the business.

This is being a "self employed" sales person for one company's goods. The sales staff which is really all the are, don't have any employment rights/pension etc. If it's that good, why don't they employ these people to sell it, have shops etc? rhetorical question.

essentially the post is supposed to be about supporting local business rather than massive faceless retailers. Visiting your local independent cafe, buying from the craft shop or local bookstore etc rather than Amazon and the like.

I wonder how many #bossbabes have a liability insurance🤔

MLM sellers are sales reps, pure and simple. HQ tells them that they're 'business owners' to remove themselves from any liability, pension provision, holiday, national insurance etc etc.
A corner shop owner doesn't have an 'upline' i.e. the person who recruited them and the person who recruited them and so forth. They just buy in stock and sell for a profit, and pay their staff a wage.

@dickiedavisthunderthighs. That's a really good article you posted. Thanks. I recommend posters reading it through and seeing how this all works. I've always known these things were scams but never really looked into it before. Friend also used to sell cards and stuff from another MLM. You'd have thought once bitten...?

Poor deluded fools.

I never fail to feel shocked by the slew of brainwashed botspeak when it happens.