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Original poster

To chuck the Avon book in the recycling.

552 replies

Houseplanter · 01/10/2023 22:16

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
17
User174085934 · 05/10/2023 08:01

It's more convenient to buy it on Amazon if I was to need any Avon stuff, they have an Avon store on there

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 08:03

User174085934 · 05/10/2023 08:01

It's more convenient to buy it on Amazon if I was to need any Avon stuff, they have an Avon store on there

Many reps now have a digital page you can order from, exactly like amazon.

WrongSwanson · 05/10/2023 08:05

StarlightLady · 05/10/2023 07:55

@WrongSwanson - Of course it’s a business! But at the end of the day you have a local agent trying to earn a few pounds. Why make life difficult for someone, when it’s no extra effort to simply leave the booklet out. These roles sre often undertaken by those finding it hard to make ends meet.

Amazon is a business, but l don’t go out of my way to make things as difficult as possible for the delivery driver.

My local pub is a business, but l still take my wine glass back to the bar when l leave.

Call me old fashioned, but it’s calked courtesy.

I choose to order a glass of wine or an Amazon parcel though. Its entirely different.

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 05/10/2023 08:05

She doesn't look ridiculous at all.

Agreed - partypant isnt the ridiculous one here.

Why is it so difficult to comprehend that people in 2023 aren't familiar with the Avon sales model, when it's long past its heyday? Why wouldn't you assume that it's junk mail, when it plops through the door with the other JM, looking just like JM?

It's like me getting angry with people under 30 and calling them unpleasant names because they have no idea what Bejam was.

SurprisedWithAHorse · 05/10/2023 08:07

StarlightLady · 05/10/2023 07:55

@WrongSwanson - Of course it’s a business! But at the end of the day you have a local agent trying to earn a few pounds. Why make life difficult for someone, when it’s no extra effort to simply leave the booklet out. These roles sre often undertaken by those finding it hard to make ends meet.

Amazon is a business, but l don’t go out of my way to make things as difficult as possible for the delivery driver.

My local pub is a business, but l still take my wine glass back to the bar when l leave.

Call me old fashioned, but it’s calked courtesy.

You ordered stuff from Amazon and the bar. And it's in your interests to make it easy to get your stuff delivered to you.

Nobody is obliged to do anything with unsolicited junk mail. If the Avon job is crap and costing you money, the problem is that it's a bad business model designed to exploit reps to profit those at the top, not that people don't read and sort and bag and leave out a catalogue that will be out of date in three weeks out of displaced guilt.

Is there anything women don't get blamed for?

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 05/10/2023 08:15

I truly hope, for those of you who are so verbally aggressive on Mumsnet, that people are nicer to you than you are to them.

Who is being verbally aggressive?

Why is it important to #bekind to people who post unsolicited mail through your door and then give you instructions as to how to deal with it to get it back to them; but the busy householders who also have to juggle jobs, school, family and all the admin of everyday life somehow don't deserve the same level of courtesy?

Many reps now have a digital page you can order from, exactly like amazon.

One of the reasons why Amazon is so successful is because they make it so very easy for you. Why would people go seeking out a digital page belonging to their local rep, when they can just open their Amazon app and click once for the goods to be delivered promptly straight to their door?

Plus, a lot of people like the anonymity factor with Amazon, whereby you order whatever/whenever you want and then, if you stop for any reason, there won't be anybody hovering around to try to persuade you to order again and talking emotively about being a mum who is just trying to earn a few quid to support her kids.

WrongSwanson · 05/10/2023 08:19

The only verbal aggression I can see is from Avon reps

  • calling people idiots (it got deleted by Mumsnet)
  • using emotive language to try and manipulate people into feeling bad about a business brochure
PreetyinPurple · 05/10/2023 08:23

It does fall into the ‘be kind’ business. It’s like when my friends did body shop parties and I bought loads of overpriced stuff I didn’t want.

we had a dreadful milk delivery company once. It was clear they were doing on the side of another job, but it meant it didn’t work. When I cancelled the woman begged me to stay as a small business starting out. But I was overpaying for often useable milk. I’m sure lots of people would feel compelled to stay.

C8H10N4O2 · 05/10/2023 08:26

OrangesLemonsLimes · 02/10/2023 09:10

This prompted me to look up Betterware online. I see that it got taken over, then the takeover company went bust earlier this year.

The Betterware guy had a bit of a go at me on the doorstep when I was a teen because I didn’t know where the catalogue was. He wasn’t aggressive, just really frustrated. My mother later told me that he was an ex-miner who had been affected by the pit closures.

It seemed innocuous then, but now we know more about the MLM model and how people who are very short of money and/or desperate to be busy are targeted and signed up ….. uuuugh.

Late to this thread but being an ex miner, even one made redundant doesn't change the fact that this is an adult man feeling entitled to vent his feelings on a young girl in her own home who had done absolutely nothing wrong.

We can blame MLMs for fostering and even training coercive sales techniques but they are fostering something which is already there.

Its not an accident that so many of them directly target women as customers and use "parties" and emotional blackmail to sell their overpriced products.

Anycrispsleft · 05/10/2023 08:32

It was part of the selling technique wasn't it, to try to confer responsibility on you to return the catalog - then you're more likely to have to look out for the rep and speak to her, so you're more likely to then buy something. It was the company's fault not the reps. If the reps were having to fork out for the catalogs as well, the company have absolutely no risk, they can just make a business out of selling catalogs to would-be reps! And then if you need to buy new catalogs for each new campaign... it's amazing what their reps put up with to make a wee bit of money. There was a time when I would have said that was the bad old days when there were large numbers of women excluded from the workforce and dependent either on husbands or poverty level benefits and vulnerable to exploitation either because they were naive and thought all jobs were such a ripoff, or more likely they knew all too well that there was very little other option... but since austerity is it even that much better now for women in those positions, I don't know, certainly MLM seems to have come back with a vengeance at least if my Facebook is anything to go by. No Joanne I still remember that day in biology when you tried to set fire to my hair so I'm not really interested in your fabulous business opportunity.

User174085934 · 05/10/2023 08:41

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 08:03

Many reps now have a digital page you can order from, exactly like amazon.

Edited
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I already pay for Amazon Prime so I don't need to seek out another page from a rep to buy the odd item of Avon should I want it

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 05/10/2023 09:18

It does fall into the ‘be kind’ business. It’s like when my friends did body shop parties and I bought loads of overpriced stuff I didn’t want.

Yes, there's a huge element of it not just being the quality/value/desirability of the goods themselves, but a lot of pressure, and even pity, behind many of the purchases.

You can call them 'parties' if you like, but all that really means is 'come to my house and feel like you have to buy something from me'. I bet a lot of the party hostesses would feel that you were a CF if you came to their 'party' and didn't buy anything.

If you're really hard up and needing to ask your friends to sub you, you'd be much better just asking them to give you a tenner, rather than asking them to spend the same amount on something they don't really want, so that you get a quid or two from it.

spitefulandbadgrammar · 05/10/2023 09:27

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 07:55

All businesses and cosmetic companies make a profit though. Elizabeth Arden doesn't give away their doublewear for free do they?

Avon allows people, usually women and usually those that cant work normal hours to try to earn a bit of money. Many aren't in the chains, they are independant and just take orders and place them with avon.

Buying through them doesn't cost the consumer any more than if they bought directly or from superdrug. You are just buying through a rep that then gets to earn some money too.

Deliberately throwing the books that have been paid for in the bin when you know the reps need them to pass on to others to try to get further sales is an arsehole move.

It doesn't require headspace or effort to just leave a book outside. For those that say they didn't know, well now you do.

For those that say its the principle, its junk mail, its a waste of paper, so what, its that persons livlihood and it doesn't hurt you to leave it outside so they can collect and pass on to the next person.

I really dont understand why a person would be so spiteful as to throw the books away. There must be something wrong with you to do that imo. Maybe buy some of their aromatherapy shit, it might make you into a less sour & vindictive person.

Edited
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You’re ignoring all the people pointing out that it’s more effort to leave a catalogue on the doorstep than take my daily 5 seconds to throw junk mail in the recycling bin and go about my business. The Avon apologists on the thread have suggested putting it in a sandwich bag – paid for by me, plus I’d have to go and find one; a carrier bag – I’ve only got bags for life, that I paid for; writing a note – !!!; sticking a post-it on it – I’d have to go and buy some post-its, for starters. I don’t want a catalogue or anything littering my doorstep to navigate the pram past, or for my four year old to trip over, or the local seagulls to scatter everywhere. If you can’t understand that you may need to lay off the shit aromatherapy, clear your head.

openallday · 05/10/2023 09:31

Surely if i need an Avon
Lipstick i can buy direct from their web shop?

I dont need a paper brochure or wait for one to arrive ? Or deliver a hand written order to a lady in my village

It's an outdated model

SurprisedWithAHorse · 05/10/2023 09:40

I'm not going to do business with anyone who thinks chucking unsolicited junk mail in the recycling makes me a dick, a fucking dick, an arsehole, an idiot, spiteful or any of the other abusive terms that have been levelled at potential customers.

Thanks for this thread, OP. Now that I know Avon is an MLM, that it's misleading about its cruelty free claims and that its reps think I'm a Bad Person if I don't do as they say with their unsolicited bumpf, I'll definitely never purchase a thing from there.

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 10:19

Its not an MLM.

KakiFruit · 05/10/2023 10:22

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 10:19

Its not an MLM.

It is an MLM.

enchantedsquirrelwood · 05/10/2023 10:24

I still don't get how everybody else happily pays for the mail they put through every door, in the knowledge that 99% of it will be recycled straightaway, but hopefully a few people will be interested; whereas Avon reps expect to not just post unsolicited stuff through people's doors, but then also get angry if the person doesn't dutifully return it to them

Yes this is a really good point. If you stick a leaflet through a door about eg fencing services, you don't expect it back. So why are the Avon/Neal's Yard/Betterware whatever catalogues somehow different?

ThreeTescoBags · 05/10/2023 10:27

Just thinking of the stuff I get through the door, there's tree surgeons, the Chinese takeaway, the horse poo man, the carpet cleaning guy, the gardeners etc. They presumably also pay to have their marketing materials printed and spend time distributing them. If I don't want to use their services am I also morally obligated to leave their leaflets out in a bag with a 'no thank you' note on. They are people with families and their leaflets are paid for too. If not, why not? Why does this only apply to the MLMs?

SleeplessinSeattle69 · 05/10/2023 10:28

Why is door to door horse poo selling a thing? I don't get it!

spitefulandbadgrammar · 05/10/2023 10:40

AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside · 05/10/2023 10:19

Its not an MLM.

It’s an MLM, hun xx

SurprisedWithAHorse · 05/10/2023 10:42

SleeplessinSeattle69 · 05/10/2023 10:28

Why is door to door horse poo selling a thing? I don't get it!

It's good on toast for gardens.

Original poster
Houseplanter · 05/10/2023 11:00

ThreeTescoBags · 05/10/2023 10:27

Just thinking of the stuff I get through the door, there's tree surgeons, the Chinese takeaway, the horse poo man, the carpet cleaning guy, the gardeners etc. They presumably also pay to have their marketing materials printed and spend time distributing them. If I don't want to use their services am I also morally obligated to leave their leaflets out in a bag with a 'no thank you' note on. They are people with families and their leaflets are paid for too. If not, why not? Why does this only apply to the MLMs?

Very good point!

OP posts:
WrongSwanson · 05/10/2023 11:03

ThreeTescoBags · 05/10/2023 10:27

Just thinking of the stuff I get through the door, there's tree surgeons, the Chinese takeaway, the horse poo man, the carpet cleaning guy, the gardeners etc. They presumably also pay to have their marketing materials printed and spend time distributing them. If I don't want to use their services am I also morally obligated to leave their leaflets out in a bag with a 'no thank you' note on. They are people with families and their leaflets are paid for too. If not, why not? Why does this only apply to the MLMs?

Totally agree.

WillowCraft · 05/10/2023 11:05

JustAMinutePleass · 01/10/2023 23:32

The books belong to the rep. Expect an invoice if you recycle / destroy it - and Avon reps get support from Avon to pursue CCJs. Not worth it. Just leave it on the doorstep in a plastic bag

Are you suggesting someone would get taken to court over an Avon catalogue?? and would end up with CCJs against them????