Do you actually make money as an Avon Rep?

[froggy1811]

Hi all, so I've recently signed up as an Avon Rep, and I have a ton of questions! Has anyone here had any experience doing this, or are you doing this currently? I have tried to ask my team/sales leader (the woman who signed me up) quite a number of questions, but she either evades the question (all through text) OR she blanks me completely, which has been the case this weekend! So, I was just wondering if any of you could help me out?!

So, because I signed up towards the end of the current campaign, I haven't ordered any brochures for this one, but I've just put an order through for 200 brochures for the next campaign (June 2021) along with some order forms (200) and 50 paper bags incase anyone orders anything and just a few lipstick samples/perfume samples. Is this enough brochures? Is it too many? And is there anything else I should be ordering that would increase my chances of sales?

I have tried to ask these questions directly to my sales leader, but as I've said she doesn't respond appropriately; so I'd be really grateful if any of you could point me in the right direction or give any useful tips!

Thanks everyone

I used to do Avon. Didn’t make a fortune but the money came in handy. How many houses on your patch? 200 brochures sounds a lot to me. Once you get to know your patch, you will be able to reduce the number of brochures as you will find out who is definitely not interested and who is. Remember, you don’t have to deliver all of your brochures at the same time. You can deliver half, collect them back in and then do the other half of your patch.

Remember you can back order from the previous campaign’s brochure. So when you place your order, check if the items are on offer in the last brochure and order from there if so.

I was advised to put the order form in the brochure at a page where you think there is a good product or offer. Apparently this helps sales of that product/offer but can’t say I noticed when I tried it.

Also , check 3 for 2 offers. Quite often, two separate customers will order one item on 3 for 2. As you place one big order, you can get the free item still.

Watto thank you so much for these tips! Sorry for the late reply, my internet decided to hide out for the night!

So, if someone ordered a foundation from current campaign, and it was half price in the last campaign, do you mean that I can order the half price one from the last book, then keep the extra money? Also, how do you order from the last campaign?

With regards to my patch, there are around 200 ish houses. I'm planning to try this particular estate out and see how it goes, because Avon don't allocate you a patch anymore, so I could even be posting brochures in someone else's patch (but how am I meant to know?) I did ask for advice from my team leader, but again she wouldn't answer me! To be honest, I thought it would be terribly straight forward but there are so many of things that I'm confused about! For example, how many weeks do you have to leave the brochures out? Is it two? Is it three? Sorry for all the questions!

It was about 10 years ago I did it so things may have changed. Yes, you order the cheaper one from the last book and keep the difference! I think there were separate sections on the online order forms for each campaign.

The campaigns are (or certainly were!) only 3 weeks apart so you can’t leave them for 3 weeks. I used to deliver the brochures on a weekend and collect on the following Thursday. You never get them all back on the first attempt though so you will need to go out and collect at least twice. Get the calling cards if they still do them or print off your own. Leave it too long before collecting them and people lose them.

You’ll never make millions but I enjoyed it, especially delivery day! It was like Christmas!

What an excellent tip, I never would have thought of that! I'll definitely be keeping my eyes out for both the 3 for two thing and the discounted prices in the previous brochure! 😊

Do you know how long it takes for Avon to deliver your customers orders to you? Would you place an order for the customer as soon as you get the book and order form back, or would you wait until you get the second lot of books back too and then just place one big order for everyone?

I know what you mean, I am super excited to get my first ever delivery day!! But I'm going to have to stop myself from buying loads of the products myself because I love the make up!

I don’t know if you can order from the previous brochure as I heard that was stopping?

I never made much money at it. I did it twice a decade apart. Haven’t done it for years. My own Avon lady puts the brochure through with a complements slip she types herself with instructions in when the orders due in by etc. Which is helpful.

I wouldn’t expect your Avon boss to reply over a holiday weekend by the way. She’s allowed time off. :-)

Hi Elieza, thank you for the tip!

I understand that! 🙂 I would never dream of messaging her throughout the bank holiday weekend or even on the Monday. When she signed me up (just over a week ago) she specifically told me not to sit here wondering about things that wasn't clear to me; but to call or message her instead. She stated that she was available 7 days a week...now, because I didn't want to hassle her or take up too much of her personal time I texted her a few times instead. Perhaps I should have called her, but I was kind of hoping that she'd offer by to phone me because I was confused about certain things (I know that I should probably be more forward and request a call, but I just wanted to be considerate, as I know that in addition to Avon she has a young family) however, she just won't answer my questions. For example, I asked her how many brochures I should order for my first campaign, to which she replied "are you planning to do it more online or canvasing?" So, I wrote back stating that I was planning to do both (had an issue with Facebook which I explained) so for this campaign I'd be mainly dropping brochures through doors; and instead of answering my question regarding the quantity of brochures, she just wrote back " that should keep you busy..." So, realising I wasn't going to get an answer on this, I then asked her how I would pay for customer orders if I got lucky and got orders that exceeded the £250 credit limit that Avon have given me. She just completely blanked my message and never replied. That was five days ago! And yet she has sent me a ton of generic messages that she sends out to all of her team, reminding me how many days I have left on current campaign.

Prior to this, I had tried twice to seek her advice and she just either replies with something inappropriate, or blanks me completely. In total, from day of sign up I have texted her four simple questions.

I understand she has a life, but it just seems counter productive for her to not help/advise me, when she would benefit financially from any sales that I make, iyswim. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get my head around it once it becomes routine!

Sorry, I just realised that I DID text her on Friday but received no reply so this could have been due to the bank holiday...

Hopefully your avon woman will get back to you soon. She doesn’t sound helpful. Mine was great last time, gave me free brochures and some of her sales to order in my name so id make the minimum order.

I hope your patch is near home OP. Mine was at my mums area and I found that I’d put the brochures through the doors and come back a week later as I advised on the slips and people would be out. So I’d need to come back again. Which messed me up for reusing the brochures in the next street as I’d be a couple short until I got them back.

And when delivering id take the stuff and people would be out. My last straw was a man who told me twice his daughter was out and could I come back. I asked the second time if perhaps she’d care to leave the money with him if he was more likely to be in at the day/time id agreed but I ended up I had to go back a third time and finally caught her in. Each time it was my time plus petrol. I made nothing on that sale of a nail varnish or whatever it was!

I don’t know about this new online thing you can do but it could be good. Perhaps others know? It’s like your own online avon shop that customers can buy whatever they want and you get the commission. I presume you pay Avon and customers pay postage but it may suit customers who want something but don’t want to wait until you are next round. But I don’t know as I’ve not used it! My lady puts a note of hers on her compliments slip so we can order like that. I guess she has a printer at home as they are printed and stapled to brochures.

Oh and the product numbers on the items is not the same as the product numbers in the U.K. So it takes longer to tie up the various items with the customer as you need to use the names of products rather than numbers. But this is ages ago so it may have changed.