To throw the Avon catalogue...

[onionbahjeepers]

I didn't even think Avon still did catalogues but I've just got home to find one through my door and a note saying they'll collect next week.

Person A says just throw it away, it's unsolicited mail.

Person B says just throw it out on the doorstep and let it sit there for a week.

Person C says keep it in and remember to put it out on the day it says it'll be collected.

Which team are you?

I am amused by the idea that an A5 size booklet "clutters up" people's homes 😂

For the reasons already stated, options B or C.

@Needmorelego or is invasive 😂

It’s intrusive.

”Take this, store it for me, I will collect it at my convenience, regardless of your work hours/what else you have going on.

My booklet will take up space in your home and mind and you just have to suck it up.

Your house, my rules.

Avon 4 Eva.”

FML.

It’s as much the brain clutter as it’s the physical clutter-on-the-side waiting to be dealt with. Another thing to remember between bins day, packing my lunch, finding the shirt without toothpaste on it and all the rest before going to work. Can’t be doing with adding ‘is it today the Avon lady wants her book back’ to it all.

Exactly. I just say I never support MLM schemes and hope the unpaid rep does not lose too much money or time over it.

Paying for your own catalogues indeed, the cheek of it!

Leave it by the door with a note saying thanks but no thanks. The person who left it there may be charged by the company if it goes missing.

B. I’d leave it on the doorstep for a week. I wouldn’t bring it in unless I wanted to have a look and I wouldn’t throw it cos they’ll just knock on the door and ask for it

I don't have anything laying around - post is dealt with straight away and filed/recycled as appropriate, so yes, having to have a catalogue hanging around to probably be collected at a future date would be annoying clutter.

The thing is its a lose/lose situation. Organised people and those with tidy houses won't want a catalogue laying around so will likely recycle it. Disorganised people and those with messy houses probably won't be able to find it to give it back and/or will forget.

Surely to do the job properly, you knock on the door and ask if the resident wants to look at the catalogue, and then if they do, you make an appointment to go back and get the catalogue and take the order. People who just shove catalogues unsolicited through doors are trying to palm off the admin/organisation elements of their job onto unwilling recipients. If you're too lazy to do the job properly, don't do it at all.

When I moved into my new property about 3 months, I received an Avon catalogue through the door for the first time in probably 15 years.
I had a little flip through it, and then put it in the bin. It never occurred to me to do otherwise.

About a week later, I happened to arrive home from work early, and was just getting out of my car on my driveway when a lady approached me. At first I assumed she was one of the new neighbours stopping to say hello.
"I'm the Avon lady..."
"Oh." I say.
long pause The lady who used to live here always bought stuff."
"I'm afraid I'm not interested." I reply.
To which she slightly huffily said, "Well you can just through the catalogue in the bin then."

Lady, it hadn't occurred to me to do anything different. In my mind it was unsolicited post. How was I to know that the previous owner had been an avid Avon user?

Bin. The minute it comes through your door, it becomes your property. Why should you hold onto junk mail til they can be arsed collecting it?

@mrsm43s yes but mumsnetters don't answer their front doors so the Avon Lady (or bloke 😱) can't knock and ask can they 😂😂😂

What a load of dramatic fuss over a small booklet 😂😂😂

I would leave it out in a freezer bag, with a note asking for no more.

I like Avon products, and used to order quite often from MiL's catalogue. Then MiL moved, had a new rep. With old rep, MiL had put her order on the form, and I wrote mine on a piece of paper (very legibly, with catalogue page, product code and item name, number ordered, unit cost, total cost) and old rep was happy to take the order like that.

New rep insisted MiL (in her 90s, arthritic hands) wrote it all out again on a proper form.

It was a large order - lots of stacking fillers - and too long for one form (even if MiL was ordering nothing. I'm only there intermittently so can't get extra forms for my order in time. Nor am I going to trouble MiL to re-write it because new rep refuses to deal with a list version (yes, new rep would have to re-write it, like old rep did, but she's the one making money from it - is it really so much bother to someone without arthritis?)

So never again wilI be ordering from her

Just put it back outside.

I once accidentally solved the catalogue problem I think it was betterware by offending the bloke.

I just happened to be right by the door when he put it through so I opened the door and chucked it outside on to the step while he was walking away from my door.

I didn't do it to be rude, but he never dropped another one so I presume I came across as very rude. Oh well. 🤷‍♀️

I put them in the recycling.

I have a no unsolicited mail sign clearly by my letterbox so if they can't read that, tough. I'm not leaving things outside my door looking a mess.

Someone where we used to live got the message, because they left them once or twice, I left them on the doorstep and then they stopped.

Joe Browns keep sending me a catalogue, despite emailing, asking them not to and them acknowledging it and saying they won’t. If I order from them it will be online.

I would do option C because these girls that deliver this actually pay for these catalogues then they can use it again for somebody else and it’s not really that hard just putting it out

I'd be doing like a few other posters have said, putting it on the doorstep in a clear sandwich bag or something - with a note saying 'no thanks, and I don't want a catalogue bringing here again. Thank you...' And if it did come again, then I would bin it. Not my problem if it comes out of their profits. I haven't asked for it, have I?

I used to absolutely love Avon in the 70s, 80s and 90s. (and for a few years of the 00s/noughties. (Well, my mum had it in the 70s as I was a child, but I used to order bits from it and use my pocket money!)

For a good 7-8 years in the 00s/noughties, I had an Avon lady who was incredibly reliable. She had about 150 customers and they all loved her. But she stopped in 2009. Since then, I've experienced (in 3 different areas) 6 different Avon ladies who've just been useless and have let me down over and over.

I don't know if they can't get enough customers, or if they're just too lazy - and can't be arsed to keep coming out to post the catalogues, then come back to pick them back up, then come back to bring the stuff you order, then come back to bring it again, if you haven't got the money at the time.

But 6 different ones who were shit/unreliable?! (From 2009 onwards!) Crazy!

I did actually order from them all too. A couple of them went maybe 4 to 6 months and then stopped, a couple more just did 2 to 4 orders and then stopped, and the last two just put the catalogue through the door and never came back! (The sixth one was 2019.)

So when a SEVENTH one put a catalogue through my letterbox last summer (2023,) I just stuck it back on the doorstep and left it. (No note, just didn't order anything.) She came back to take it after a few days. 4 weeks later she dropped another one off. I put a note in this time saying 'no thanks. And please don't deliver the catalogue again because I'm not interested thanks.'

She never came back!!! After a couple of months I binned the catalogue. Never saw her again, ever.

I got so fed up and will never engage with/order from an 'Avon Lady' again, because they are so unreliable ...

The first one I left out on the correct date and it never got collected. I binned a few weeks later.

The second one I binned it straight away but somebody actually turned up at the door to ask for it so I denied all knowledge, shrugged and shut the door.

Not had any for a few years now but they will get binned upon delivery if I do. I feel sorry for the poor suckers that get taken in by the scheme but that does not mean I want their shite hanging around my house or driveway.

A lady at my work said she was doing Avon on the side a and asked if she could give any of us a book?

I was one of a few that said yes and she dropped off a book

Had a look and ordered about £50 worth of stuff-handed it back to her and everything was fine

She left work a few days later for another job and I never saw her again

She'd snub me in the street,knocked me of fb and would stomp off if I saw her randomly

After a year of this,she sent me a message on sm,acting like my best mate

God only knows-the Avon effect I guess

I'd look through the catalogue and see if I wanted anything. My Mum used to be an Avon lady in the 90s and I remember it fondly. They had some good stuff. I wore their bras for years.

If I didn't want anything I'd do B.

I think in the days of my mum and her generation, they were mostly polite and didnt mind the catalogues. There was no internet etc.

But today's millennials and gen-z's have no patience. They are the Amazon generation who want stuff knock down cheap, delivered in 1 day and demand returns, will leave 1 star reviews for things out of the courier's control and will even haggle for refunds if they wore it, broke it etc.

I couldn't do the Avon job. The Avon lady doesn't know if you are a decent person or if you have issues and cannot tolerate a book, have OCD, don't have time to put it on the doorstep or even if you are a weirdo.

The meltdowns over an A5 booklet are bizarre.

However, what goes around, comes around...the intolerant will be on the receiving end of someone's rude behaviour eventually.

The one and only time I've received an Avon catalogue, I threw it away not realising I was expected to do anything else with it. It's a very outdated business model. The "just a mum trying to make some money" thing doesn't fly with me - aren't we all? Mums can have proper jobs these days. If I want makeup I'll go online or go to the shops.

Leave it outside.

I love Avon. All my make up is Avon.