To chuck the Avon book in the recycling.

[Houseplanter]

So I know there's someone out there trying to make a living and good for them. But i don't want Avon stuff. My choices are to

a leave it out on the step where it'll likely get wet
b keep it in the house but I'm unlikely to be here when they call back
c (and this is my preference) chuck it in the recycling with the rest of the unsolicited trash.

It reminds me of Victor Meldrew's radioactive horse muck bought from a dodgy door-to-door seller!

Avon has been MLM for at least 20 years, but they keep it well hidden. Before internet took off our local papers were full of small ads in the jobs section offering recruitment. A gullible friend got sucked in, it was definitely a pyramid scheme. She worked her socks off trying to recruit new reps, as she’d get a cut of their sales. Told me it was like having a bucket with holes in it, and she had to keep topping it up. She travelled miles and wasted whole days on it.

She did go to a free/not free “sales conference” in Germany with her upline - it was all about empowering women of course.

After that it started to dawn on her that she was a victim too.

They have definitely kept it well hidden...I truly thought it was just direct sales, and I did wonder how that model survived in this day and age.

WrongSwanson what an awesome username

We pop all junk mail like that straight in the recycling, it had never occurred to me to do anything else at all till I saw this thread.

It's quite a bizarre concept, isn't it - to not only impose junk mail on strangers but then to expect to tell them how to curate your junk mail? The whole point of JM is that you plop and run - and then wait and hope.

I’d suggest you were giving that vastly more headspace than it required. Leave the catalogue outside the door and forget about. If you still see it there a week or two later, bin it. Job done with minimal headspace usage.

What?! Lots of people take great pride in their home and how it's 'presented' - who wants a piece of random grubby, wet litter hanging around the doorway for a fortnight?

Exactly, plus visible jobs = headspace, because you’d see it every time you left the house or returned, and trigger the ever-present ongoing to-do list many people have in their heads (whether they like it or not). It’s like a pile of washing sitting on the bed to be put away, or a vase of flowers that’s died: a constant visual nag. Two weeks of a soggy unwanted catalogue redistributed in bits round my front garden by the seagulls is quite a lot of headspace. Putting it in the recycling immediately, virtually zero.

Avon person near us keeps leaving us catalogues.
she even left a note in them asking for them to be left out so she could collect them because she gets charged for them. Anoying but fine. (Took her 3 weeks to collect it each time and i dont want litter left on my doorstep that long) Left a reply note in the bag asking her not to deliver in the future as we don't want them and consider them junk mail.
The first 3 were left out for her to collect with notes. Book 4 has gone in the bin. If she isn't reading the notes we leave each time or is so self centred she wants to ignore them, then I'm not going to continue. Multiple chances offered and ignored.

This.
Yes, they pay for the books, bags, ordered forms, the lot.

Although I know it'll take you a few minutes to do, but will save you time in the long run, If you don't want it just pop a post it note on asking not to deliver it again and leave it in a plastic bag on the doorstep and hopefully you'll stop receiving it.

The catalogues come out every three weeks. If no order is being placed, what's the point of collecting them back?

Why will it "save time in the long run"?

The local wine bar/pizza shop/handyman etc also all pay for their marketing materials but they don't try and guilt trip us into handing them back.

I hate that MLMs reply on guilt as such a big part of how they extract money. It's such a manipulative approach to business.

Because OP won't have to keep putting it in their recycling box.

Who's guilt tripping?

They don't need those materials for their actual sales though, do they.

And no one is guilt tripping anyone, just saying don't be a dick. Its really not hard to just leave something on your doorstep.

Comeforth dear MN, with all your whataboutery about why its so so hard to leave a booklet on your doorstep. Please.

Be Kind, ladies. Be so so kind.

Sorry but no amount of 'be kinds' will persuade me to leave crap on my doorstep for weeks on end making my garden look untidy. And anyway my dog would love to chew that kind of crap up - I don't fancy dealing with the poo output from chewed up Avon catalogue.

Yeah good luck with that. I think they need to look up the rules about unsolicited goods! People do like to post nonsense on here at times.

However, I do know they have to buy their catalogues so I wouldn't bin them. But how you'd know what the individual rules for different companies are I don't know.

If you don't want to lose your catalogues, only put them through doors of people you know want to receive them. A lot of people order online now anyway and the rep delivers.

The reps really are the customers! What a bloody waste.

Presumably they'll stop dropping it off if they don't get one back though.

Nope. The dickish thing is posting the stuff through a letterbox in the first instance

I wouldn't want to make it look as though I'm out all the time or be faced with it cluttering up my doorway.

And no one is guilt tripping anyone, just saying don't be a dick.

That's a guilt trip. What kind of response do you think it's going to get?

I’d just leave it out on the door step and throw away if not collected within a few days. I’m not overly bothered by people who would choose to throw them away, surely that comeswith the territory if you’re posting things into peoples homes?

My mum had loads of friends doing Avon when I was a kid. Consult bought crap she didn’t need because she felt she had to (she’s a massive people pleaser). I stopped buying from places like Avon/Tupperware parties etc as I end up purchasing things I don’t really want.

Who's guilt tripping?

Obviously, the ones who come back for their junk mail and then try to guilt-trip people into feeling bad for having thrown away said junk mail that the poster of it has had to pay for (just like the distributors of all JM have to pay for it, naturally).

Depending on their level of chutzpah, there have already been reports on this thread of catalogue-leavers claiming that the householder 'owes' them for the cost of the disposed-of catalogue; I also wouldn't put it past some to go further and try to get people to think they should give them a small pity-order as a result, by way of 'compensation'.

Because I’ve got a pram to get down the steps and a four year old who loves tripping over things. I’ll put it in the bin. But KINDLY.