1. f you want to get into the clothing small business arena, there are plenty of sites you can purchase wholesale cloths to sell 100% as you see fit. Google how to start a mobile boutique to get started down that path. I chose LLR because I wanted a middle man that provides the services that they do.

   Hold it right there! LuLaRoe is NOT a “middleman” … they control your business in a way that an import/export facilitator, manufacturer’s rep, or independent fasion buyer does not. They control your business in a way Etsy, Amazon, eBay and other e-commerce sites do not.

   You chose to accept a “middleman” that is recruiting direct competition for your mobile boutique … recruiting hundreds of them a month and selling them the same styles and prints that they sold you?

   You chose to accept a “middleman” who gives you no choice in your selection of clothing size and color, no choice of manufacturer?

   You chose to accept a “middleman” whose response to craptastic quality is to tell you to inspect them?

   You chose to accept a “middleman” who will not accept back the factory defective merchandise they sold to you, despite they being the ones who chose both the fabric and the manufacturer?

   You chose to accept a “middleman” who has a contract, (disguised as Policies and Procedures) telling you where you can and cannot sell the things they picked for you, and how you must act?
   https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/llrprod/exigo/llrAdmin/documents/LLR_P%26Ps_Rev_2.20150603.pdf

   You chose to accept a “middleman” that controls your sales locations by contract?
   Independent Fashion Consultants may not sell LLR products from a commercial outlet, nor may Independent Fashion Consultants display or sell LLR products in any retail or service
   establishment.
   …
   Independent Fashion Consultants may not list or sell LLR products on any online retail store or ecommerce site or platform (including an e‐commerce site created or operated by an Independent Fashion Consultant) such as Amazon, AliBaba, eBay Stores, etc.

   You chose to accept a “middleman” that controls your speech by contract?
   4. Speak well of LLR, other LLR Independent Fashion Consultants and our competitors.

   You chose to accept a “middleman” whose business model makes it necessary to declare in your contract that you have “Independent Contractor Status”?

   You chose to accept a “middleman” whose contract with you states they are neither an importer nor a e-commerce website?
   “LLR is a Home Party based business. All sales should be done through hosted
   home parties or person to person from the Independent Fashion Consultant to the consumer.”

   You chose to accept a “middleman” whose contract with you controls your price structure?
   Further, where advertising by Independent Fashion Consultants is permitted (see Sections 3.5 and 3.12.11 below), Independent Fashion Consultants agree that they will not advertise LLR products at prices less than the suggested retail prices as established by LLR and published in official LLR materials.

   You chose to accept a “middleman” whose contract with you controls what you do with your supposedly “independent business”.
   3.26 Sale, Transfer or Assignment of an Independent
   LLR Business Although a LLR business is a privately owned and independently operated business, the sale, transfer or assignment of a LLR business is subject to certain limitations.

   AHAH!!!! You chose to accept a “middleman” that gives you a kickback from the sales of anyone you recruit! Now I understand it. All those rules and restrictions are OK because you don’t want to build your own business and make money like a real small business … you want to make money by recruiting people to sign up under you and collect part of their gross income. It’s the new sharecropping.
   “The Sponsoring Independent Fashion Consultant shall be entitled to compensation for product sales by the new Independent Fashion Consultant based on the LLR Leadership Bonus Plan.”

   Middleman = MiddLeMan

   • I agree with everything you’ve written. Why on earth anyone would plunk down $6,500+ for clothing (that they couldn’t even choose) and be tied to all those rules & regulations is beyond me. Once you purchase something, whether it be clothing or a toaster or a car or a lawnmower, it’s yours & you can do whatever you want to do with it—you can sell it for more than you paid for it, sell it for less than you paid for it, sell it for less than what stores and other people are selling it for, you can advertise the sale wherever you want, you can sell on eBay or other websites, you can accept payment any way you want. The one thing that ties a person to being controlled by LLR is that contract they sign. Otherwise, they can sell the LLR stuff for whatever prices they want (and undercut other “consultants”, which is poo-pooed by LLR), sell them wherever they want, take whatever form of payment they want, and market their inventory any way they want. What blows my mind is how the consultants cover for the horrible service that comes from the main office of LLR & manage to somehow excuse that kind of service, especially since they are being controlled by the main office. They call this a “sisterhood” because LLR is made up of mainly women & the rah-rah attitude & brainwashing starts at the top & trickles down until it reaches all the consultants. No amount of cheerleading would make me join a company that controls every aspect of how I sell merchandise & then provides such horrible support for the consultants trying to sell their products. Aside from that contract, if one were to look at things from a legal perspective, how the consultants are working & being controlled with a big set of rules & regulations makes them employees of the corporation, not “independent retailers”. An “independent retailer” buys their merchandise from a wholesaler, chooses what they want to sell, markets & advertises the clothing however, wherever & whenever they want to, sets their own prices, and chooses what payment processing services they want. There is no set of rules & regulations from a corporate company if you are legally an independent retailer—-you can conduct your business however you want. What raises flags for me is that LLR claims that it is a “Direct Sales” company, but it is not listed with the Direct Sales Association. This leads me to believe it is a pyramid scheme. The chances that a consultant is going to rake in a ton of money without a downline is slim to none—-this is what defines a pyramid scheme. Does a LLR consultant HAVE to recruit other consultants under her? No. But she can only get bonuses if she has a big enough downline that is purchasing inventory from LLR. And, on every single YouTube video posted by a LLR consultant, they all say “Contact me if you want to know more about this great opportunity for great income potential!!”—that’s because they want to try to recruit you under them. The “great income potential” is for the consultant recruiting consultants under her, not for the consultant joining. It is a bit mind boggling to me that anybody would agree to be bound under the LLR rules & regulations after plunking down $6,500+ on clothing that they were unable to choose—LLR calls it their “on boarding package”. From what I’ve seen, the on boarding packages are the most hideous patterns they have which the new consultant will have to do back flips to sell, with a couple decent looking patterns mixed in which will sell—this keeps the consultant coming back for more because they feel that they have to make up the $6,500+ they spent on the ugly on boarding inventory, and they hope they’ll get enough decent patterns to continue selling & possibly turn a profit. It’s kind of like gambling: Let’s look at slot machines, for an example. The majority of people ultimately lose all their money. What keeps them playing are the small wins that allow them to keep playing. If someone is playing a $1 slot machine, and they put in $100 to start, they might get down to $25 & then they’ll win $25 which allows them to keep playing for a while. They’ll go back down to $25 and then win another $25 to continue playing for a while. Then they’ll go back down to $25 and win $15 to continue playing. And eventually they don’t win enough to enable them to continue playing & they’ve lost all their money. Sometimes they’ll win $200 or $300—not a huge win, but enough to “reinvest” & keep playing for a while—which, if they keep playing, will likely result in them losing all their money. Every once in a while, someone comes along & wins the jackpot, but that is exceedingly rare. This sounds an awful lot like LLR—big investment up front, sell enough to place an order to replace inventory, then sell enough to place another order for inventory, but never really sell a lot or get rid of their initial inventory to make any decent money. Consultants are paying retail prices for the clothing when they purchase it from LLR, and then doubling the prices in an effort to turn a profit. In my opinion, on no planet are generic leggings worth $25+, a generic tent-like shirt $35, a big, baggy dress worth $55, a cardigan sweater worth $70. The quality & workmanship on the clothing has become so poor that a class action suit was filed against LLR for knowingly selling defective clothing & refusing to give refunds. In fact, one of the owners, Mark Stidham, sent a mass email to all of the consultants urging them not to return defective items to LLR because it takes too much time—he told consultants that they should endeavor to sell the defective items & learn how to sew so they could fix the defects. Consultants are supposed to learn how to sew to fix defects in the clothing after they dumped $6,500+ for it? When I saw that, I couldn’t believe my eyes. What the home office of LLR does is fleece the consultants by telling them everything they want to hear to boost their self esteem & make them feel like they’re all doing great under the guise of buying more & more clothing to make their inventory bigger. The real consumer in the LLR game is the consultants—they’re buying the clothing at retail prices & then doubling the prices in an effort to turn a profit. The clothing is priced so high for re-sale because corporate LLR knew damned well that consultants would have difficulty selling a large number of items they receive, so by pricing the items high, at least there was a chance the consultants could break even or make a small profit. LLR buys leggings for $1.50/pair, sells it to the consultants for $12.50/pair, and the consultants charge $25 or more per pair. In my humble opinion, if somebody really wanted to get into selling clothing, no matter how they wanted to do it–direct sales, open a store, online, etc.–$6,500 could buy a hell of a lot of clothing at wholesale prices that they could choose, price accordingly & market however they please. I still cannot figure out why anyone would want to join LLR.

     • Why I also would anyone plunk down over a hundred k for a McDonald’s, or a Chick-fil-A, or a Taco Bell, or any other franchise where they have to buy their merchandise and then follow the rules to sell it? I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so stinkin different because it isn’t.

2. -It looks like you have lost triple your money on those defective leggings: the $12.50 you spent for them and the $25 you refunded to your customer.

   This was MY bad math – I’m not an accountant. Ans I had not had enough coffee.

   – You spent $12.50 for them.
   – Your customer bought them for $25 (you are up $12.50, minus your expenses) (y’all keep ignoring the expenses!)
   – You refunded them for the $25
   – You are back at -$12.50(+ expenses of the sale and cost of shipping the defective piece back to LLR)

   Until and unless you get the refund/replacement from LLR, you have lost more than $12.50, and you will never get the expenses and shipping back.

   • This also doesn’t take into account the time, energy, gas, supplies, whatever, to send them back. You have also lost money on the time it took to order, receive, and sell them. Even if you feel the amount is negligible, it adds up.

3. I have a pair of leggings I bought from Torrid literally *years* ago and have been wearing on my fat butt for *years* without a hole developing. When I eventually do retire them, I’m pretty sure it will be for fading in color a bit. Leggings aren’t supposed to get holes like cheap pantyhose.

4. “You’re wrong. Forming an LLC does not make you exempt from self-employment taxes”.

   All I have to say is, thanks for the morning chuckle. I love when a
   “rookie” tries to school a forensic accountant…

   • Good one! 🙂

   • Why on earth would anyone think that forming an LLC exempts them from paying taxes?

     Oh right, and these LLR consultants will go on and on about how they are “businesswomen”. Yes, these are astute businesswomen who don’t even know they have to pay taxes. Good grief.

5. Supposedly, LLR is changing the bonus structure in April. The up-lines will receive bonuses on what their down-lines SELL, not on what they order.

   • I suspect this is a direct response to the FTC’s latest guidance:

     http://behindmlm.com/companies/latest-ftc-guidance-to-mlm-industry-emphasizes-retail-sales/

     I’m waiting to see how MKorpse handles this…

   • Of course, because LLR was paying out too much based on what new consultants were ordering. LLR wants the new consultants to plunk down thousands of dollars for their poor quality clothing, and they couldn’t care less whether it’s sold or not. LLR knows that in every order, consultants get pieces they can’t give away because they’re so ugly, so they didn’t want to have to compensate the upline consultant(s) on how much their downline consultants purchased—it is far cheaper to compensate them on how much they sell. It is becoming increasingly clear that LLR is all about one thing—fleecing the consultants so they can laugh all the way to the bank. With the 2 class action lawsuits filed against them, legal fees could be in the millions—and I foresee more lawsuits in the future. Consultants shouldn’t quit their jobs, have “5 year plans”, or think they’ll be in it “for the long haul”, because I have a strong feeling LLR isn’t going to be around in another couple of years.

6. Love Love Love that google put this article right in your lap. Traffic regarding the LLR scam is getting heavy.

7. I’m surprised that, for a brand that claims to be designed for larger sizes in mind, that this consultant would say that “TC leggings have an upper size limit” and that “fat women are ripping these leggings because they are too fat”.

8. “Before anyone blames me for trying to benefit in any way from this, I don’t know how I could. I’m an anonymous internet stranger and will not be giving my name or contact info here, so there is no possible way I could gain from my reply to this post.”

   Actually, an unverifiable positive testimony is very effective in persuading people that something (in this case, the MLM you’re connected to) is legitimate.

   The man who led the religious cult I spent my teen years in relied very heavily on anonymous testimonies to support his points.

   “I personally have not had the issues you bring up. I know some have, but from my personal circle, it seems like a very small minority and LLR is a pretty personable group of people and seem to genuinely care about the consultants.”

   Cult Leader also liked highlighting people whose experience was nothing like all those bitter ex-members who complained about deception and fraud. These people weren’t necessarily lying (although some were), but they refused to see that they were being used to cover a multitude of sins.

   I suspect I see the same methods at work here, too.

9. The consultant says she joined 1.5 years ago. If this is correct, that would mean she was one of the first ~2000 consultants. Maybe that put her far enough ahead of the curve that she really had been making a profit?

   Paying those back taxes is going to hurt, though.

10. This sure was smug and condescending considering most of their responses were “we haven’t personally had that experience”. I love how they seem to think the company is going to be able to stop the ebay sales. Sweetie and “hubby” (I hate that term so much) – it’s all downhill from here!

    • A search on eBay last month showed 106,000+ LLR pieces. This month it’s up to 113,000+ pieces. Next month it will undoubtedly be more than that. LLR consultants are jumping ship pretty regularly now because they’re getting stuck with hideously ugly pieces that they can’t give away no matter what they do. If you’re looking for a specific print or item, you’re best served to search eBay first—the prices are usually lower. Consultants don’t like that there are so many pieces for sale on eBay, and they always say “But you don’t get that personalized service like you would if you bought from a consultant”—when all is said and done, do you really care if you shared superficial niceties with someone you have never met or if you bought it from a website & never talked to anybody? Does it make the item fit better? Wear better? Look better? No. In the end, it looks the exact same.

      • And Holly, it is just going to keep on increasing. I suspect by the end of this year, there will be a million LuLaRoe pieces on there. Why oh why do women fall for this shit?

11. Check out mommygyver’s blog post today.
    Paraphrasing here: “…merchant agreement with Zion’s bank…sign up or you’ll be fired…” People’s credit ratings being hit, etc.
    From Zion website: “On July 10, 1873, Zion’s Savings Bank and Trust Company was incorporated under the laws of the Utah Territory by the direction of Brigham Young”

    I can’t imagine being a LLR rep, just trying to sell some leggings to make money for my family, and yet have to deal with all this!

    • I was just about to post this! It’s crazy!

12. What I caught from his comments is that he bought a bunch of inventory the first year and wrote it off as a business loss. Now here he is claiming that all sales of that original inventory are 100% profit.

    Wrong.

    Unsold inventory cost you money, no matter how you financed it or how much you wrote off as a loss. You can’t pretend the original cost was zero just because you’re selling old stuff.

    • That’s exactly what I was thinking! Plus they seem obsessed with their credit card, like it’s a magic cash making machine. Credit card debt is just that honey: DEBT.

13. Don’t you love it when MLM’s use the “it’s a small business, you need to be ready to lose $$ the first year” argument? Guess what, this is not your business, it’s an independent contracting gig. If it were a business, you could build it up and when it takes off you could actually sell it for a profit. Let’s say you start a restaurant or a tailoring shop or a boutique and you do well. Your circumstances change (health issue, retirement, etc). You can now sell your business for a profit.

    I’ve done independent contracting. Because there are no employee benefits and constant layoffs, the hourly wages are higher than average. With an MLM, there is no guarantee you will earn anything – it’s up to you to swim in the shark tank of competition. Hmmm, the stress of a small business without the ownership – sounds dandy!

14. “-Defective items:

    Extremely small %. LLR home office reports it is less than 1%. The clothing industry standard is 2% (I think that’s what I read). If you join a FB group dedicated to defective items, you’re going to see a lot of defective items.

    In 1.5 years as a consultant I’ve had 6 things returned to me for defects.”

    Apparently, you’re more “Bless”ed than the average consultant, see below:

    https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/577351-lularoe-class-action-says-leggings-tear-easily/

    • Great article about it: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lularoe-legal-woes-multi-level-marketer-product-defects/

      “Thousands of customers across the United States are now stuck with defective products because defendants will neither issue refunds or make exchanges for customers and instead steer customers to the fashion consultants to deal with defective or damaged products,” the court filing says. ‘Unfortunately … defendants will not make refunds to fashion consultants for defective products and impose various barriers for exchanges. As a result, most fashion consultants will not take back defective products from customers.”

      • Saw that last night! The wheels are coming off fast, and accelerating. Once it’s hit the “main stream” media… your pants are down, your cover’s blown!

        Mark and DeAnne are probably already planning their exit. A soft spot at Angnes & Dora maybe…?

        • You mean leggings are down, right?

15. Also, has anyone posted the income disclosure statement?? All I’m saying is, that’s all you really have to look at to prove this whole thing is bunk. The numbers from the company speak for themselves!

    http://www.lularoe.com/income-disclosure-statement

    1

    • The average annual bonus payments made by LuLaRoe to ALL U.S. Consultants at all ranks …in 2015 was $91.65, and the median annual bonus payments made to ALL U.S. Consultants at all ranks in 2015 was $85.80.

      The average annual bonus payments made by LuLaRoe to Eligible U.S. Consultants at all ranks in 2015 was $424.81, and the median annual bonus payments made to Eligible U.S. Consultants at all ranks in 2015 was $397.69.

      An “Eligible” Consultant is a Consultant who has sponsored at least one other Consultant in the Consultant’s sales team and has met the personal production requirements set forth in the Leadership Bonus Plan. An “Ineligible” Consultant is a Consultant who has not met these requirements.

      In 2015, 78.43% of U.S. Consultants were Ineligible and therefore did not receive any bonus payments from LuLaRoe.

      Wow! Obviously, no one is reading these income disclosures.

16. Wait, who was actually responding here? The poster uses “I” referring to self, and assuming “I” is the wife, because poster refers to “husband’s job”.

    But later in the post the poster states “my wife”? And then the poster starts using “we”. Was this a tag team effort for the pie in the sky?

    • She explained at the beginning that her husband contributed so the point of view might switch. You can follow it with that in mind.

    • I noticed the same thing. Started off as the wife (or so I thought) and then it sounded like the husband was writing. I don’t think the cheerleaders for LLR can really be trusted—the majority of consultants are barely breaking even & not making any profit.

17. Re: The Gap comparison.

    I just did a search on the LLR site for the Mount Prospect, IL (Chicago Northwest Suburbs) and surrounding areas and found 22 consultants within a few miles of me. And I have heard that the LLR site leaves off a lot of consultants because it hasn’t been updated yet (!).

    There is only ONE Gap location in the same area, out in Schaumburg. One. And I’m pretty sure that store is just a smallish mall location, not a gigantic stand-alone location.

    That means one of the most successful and popular clothing brands in the country didn’t think it could sustain and profit from more than one store in one of the most populated suburban areas of the country. Yet LLR has 22 in the same area, probably more.

    One of the big reasons MLMs fail is because they saturate the market with competition and product. LLR is no exception.

    1

    • Potential customers is a large component to market saturation. MKrap product inherently limits itself to females. The GAP’s potential customer base is twice as large as the MKrap potential – their potential customers include men! Yet, they still only have 2.3% the market presence in your area…

18. SMH that she thinks she isn’t paying SECA. The only people who aren’t paying SECA are clergy (mostly Amish) who have chosen to opt out. Either she’s paying SECA or her tax guy is getting her into a whole lot of trouble with the IRS.

    • *The only self-employed people who aren’t paying SECA, that is

    • It may be that they filed their tax return last year showing a Schedule C loss. (All that up-front inventory they wrote off as a business expense, remember? It’s the stuff they’re now selling for pure profit this year.) In which case their tax return last year would have shown no SECA.

      But this year… If they think they can show a Schedule C profit and not pay SECA, the IRS will send them a very official-looking letter in about 60 days correcting that notion, with interest and penalties assessed.

      And if they’re NOT showing a Schedule C profit this year… with all these big earnings claims… then we’ll know it was all smoke and mirrors. Or at least they will; they may not want to let us in on the dirty little secret.

19. I agree with your post! The majority of the lularoe consultants that are successful started prior to 2016. Those after….the struggle is real! Tons of going out of business sales everywhere and the successful consultants are feeling the burn! Lots of complaining and mean girl attitude to fellow consultants. The lularoe culture is not what it used to be. They grew too fast due to greed! They never stopped onboarding when there was two week shipping delays or out of stock problems, why would they when they make 5-7k per new consultant. BTW, The discount is much more than 50%. Leggings cost us $9.50…

20. I’ve been watching Periscope for about 8 months and facebook group album/live sales. I was thinking of selling, but then changed my mind after seeing so many consultants struggling with their sales. I have purchased items, and yes there are some unattractive pieces, and some that I find are cute and still wear (personal preference). ….What is sad though is on Periscope there are so many people trying to sell Lularoe now…and only a few scopes have 3-10 viewers…with no one buying. Then you have maybe 3 big sellers on there…as soon as they pop on the viewers increase rapidly up to 80-100. Where did these viewers come from? There have been 15 scopes going with “iniitial inventory” titles….but only 3 viewers or less? Then when a big periscope seller pops on- out of nowhere 80-100 viewers pop in? This has been consistent for about 7 months now…the same big LLR scope sellers have the following…but obviously not popping in/ giving other new sellers the attention. I feel bad seeing 15-20 new sellers struggling with 1-4 or 0 people viewing….then 1 big seller pops on and suddenly 80 people are visable. Another sad thing is…I myself have stopped buying items full cost, and instead visit the “going out of business” sales Lularoe consultants are having. Clothing item Prices that are reduced 30% or more are sucking the buyers away from regular selling consultants selling at regular selling prices…making even more competition…..and then there is the albums you have to scroll through to find something you like…which is awful….some albums have 300 pairs of leggings….others pull down their albums and only post randomly to appear like they have new inventory….or to make it feel fresh. Sad….yes I agree….you don’t own anything…..you the consultant are LLR’s true customers…let that sink in…

21. I onboarded with LLR in June of 2016 – and was in business for roughly a year. During that time, I had little to no guidance, support or training to assist me in the fundamentals of growing my business. Lucky for me I do have a lengthy professional background with a successful track record for managing successful sales teams as well as hitting personal sales targets. I drew on that experience to help me figure out how to be successful and grown my LLR business. HOWEVER, over the past year, the number of consultants that have been added is insane and as such the ability to be competitive is greatly diminished. LulaRoe promotes their “Competitive Edge” based on having only a limited number of prints available in across 12 different styles from XXS – 3XL. With all the consultants they’ve onboarded you can find most styles just about anywhere you look. Secondly, I found my leadership “Coach” to be one of the rudest, abraisive individuals I’ve ever met. Her communications were condescending, her demeanor arrogant and she took little time to get to know the women in her group other than a select few who she favored. Keep in mind shes in her early 30’s, lacks real long term experience and does not possess the humility to truly lead others. As a professional veteran who’s enjoyed years of success I finally had enough of her attitude and made a decision to leave the business. When I shared this news with my VIP group, she sent me a message telling me how disapponted she was to have to learn this over social media and scolded me for recommending a sister consultant to my large VIP group because she thought I should have recommended someone else. While I typically ignore such unprofessional, nasty comments this one I responded to sharing with her that instead of being hurt that I didn’t tell her privately perhaps she should question why I didn’t feel complled to do so. I told her that all to often her communciations are rude, unprofessional and written as if she is superior to those around her. I reminded her that I have a lengthy history and proven successful track record working for a Fortune 50 company and had she taken the time to get to know me, show a bit of respect, she could have quite possibly learned a thing or two that would help transform her into a more effective leader. Her initial reply was to thank me for the feedback, but true to form the next day she sent me a nasty email telling me that the feedback would have been more useful before I decided to close my shop and while I may have had success in some areas I had not demonstrated success with my LLR business. That last comment was enough for me – especially since I had a great amount of success in the year I sold LulaRoe, my decision to close my business was based on the amount of work and time it takes, the nasty, sickening behavior of a rookie leader who had no idea how to treat others with respect and coming to the conclusion that it was time to refocus my efforts on my professional career and family. I am certain others have had similar experiences with consultants – and for the life of me I can’t find a resource for reporting “leaders” who are in need of some serious coaching. I have of course kept every single communication she’s sent and it’s my desire to warn others about her style, approach, lack of knowledge & experience and steer clear of this group. Has anyone else had a similar experience? How did you handle it?

22. Just FYI, upline doesn’t make a dime unless the downline makes a sale and the upline if keeping good sales. I work about 15-20 hours a week and profit about $2k after reinvestment/taxes/ect… My sponsor has only done this for one year and hasn’t had less than $12k in sales a month. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I’m enjoying having the extra cash and something to do that’s fun. 🙂 I’m making what I made before I became a SAHM. What makes lularoe different than other mlms is that you don’t have to build a team to make money. 99% of them you have to build a team.

    • Liar, liar, pants on fire, Hillary! The commission is paid when the distributor ORDERS the products from LuLaRoe. She doesn’t ever have to sell a thing, but her upline still gets paid. Unsurprisingly, since you lied about that, I don’t believe anything else you said in your comment. 🙂

      • Tracy …
        LLR has switched, very recently, to paying commission ONLY on sales, and the sales have to be placed through the LLR billing system.

        And the uplines are seeing a HUGE drop in income.

        • Can confirm! The LLR Defective Facebook group has some screenshots of uplines going so far as to imply they haven’t had to sell for a while (living off bonuses from downline purchases) and now they desperately need to sell. Very telling.

23. Don’t forget that you are required to use LLR’s own personal banking system when customers order from you, and that if you want to use your own money in your own way, you have to transfer that money off of LLR’s system and into your own bank account.
    In other words, you are giving LLR an interest-free loan of your own money, until you decide to take it back. And if you forget to take that money back before resigning, you might lose access to it.
    This would be the equivalent of working for Paypal and Paypal requiring that their paychecks had to be deposited into a Paypal account only.

24. Why would you pay for products that you sell, and have no control over the inventory? You can’t choose sizes, or prints.

    That is not a business. At my job, I choose the articles our store will sell, I know that women in our area are larger. We would be stupid to pay for a box of random items that only had 2 or 3 larger sized items.

25. Wow! I have been a consultant for almost 2 years and my wife & I do great with Lula. It falls into place of you get out what you put in! If you half ass the job you get crap. But if you put in at least 4 hrs a day ( that’s half a day of a normal job that you have to kill yourselves at for someone else and you get a hourly wage and while your boss gets paid a bonus for your hard work) and you do a great job you benefit all the profits. Just like any business you have to split your profit to get more product but if you actually went out a opened your own business you would have to pay a lot more to run it. First you have to get a business license which is not cheep then you have to find someone to get your cloth which is more money then you have to find someone to make your clothes which is more money then if you didn’t already know you pay yearly to have your business name which is more money almost forgot advertising your product which is more money. You do the math…. yea your helping spread the product of lula but they are putting money in your pocket for you to work from home and spend time with the family. So wow… you get what you put in. Speaking from both sides of a business owner and a consultant. I would have to say I lov being home with the family and making new friends every day and putting money in my pocket. Oh and here is Your FYI, we are going on our 3rd family vacation and it’s the end of February…. do the math!!!!

    • The full-time pay for part-time hours claim, I see? I don’t believe you’re making the money you imply you are. But even if you are, that’s not the experience of the vast majority of people in MLM. 99% lose money, and that’s a guarantee that’s built into the system. It doesn’t matter how hard you work when the system is rigged to ensure that almost everyone loses.

      http://www.pinktruth.com/mary-kay-facts/myth-of-mlm-income-opportunity-99-lose-money-in-mlm/

    • Would you care to share your Schedule C? You know to show us how uninformed we are about the great business you’re in.

26. As I read these comments I am laughing at how untrue most of them are! You don’t know what your saying. If you are not a consultant please do not give your comments. The person writing in bold…you are so inaccurate…from being cruise qualified to how money is earned. Mostly everything on here is wrong. Do you research…talk to other consultants. We don’t lie. And if you work hard and don’t invest in something without being willing to give it everything…this can be a successful business. Are you all jealous of the opportunity and successes of these consultants ? Why bash something you have not experienced? I’m baffled by this article.

    • Good try Melinda, but I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t bashing, it’s about telling the truth about this horrible company.

    • Melinda –
      Since this article was written, LuLaRoe has changed their commission structure and their buy-back policy at least once. Comments were true at the time they were written.

      Tax time is here and the LLR sellers are realizing that they may have had thousands of dollars in sales, but the expenses and the need to sell at a high discount to sell anything at all means they are losing money or making only a couple of thousand dollars for all their work … less than minimum wage in most cases. Some samples from a LLR Facebook group …

      “Finally did my LLR taxes…
      Gross-$85,400
      Expenses-$86,900ish
      Total profit-(-$1500)”

      “Sadly, ours is gonna be a loss as well. Worked our butts off and literally zero profit.”

      ” sold $63,000, and after expenses and the taxes I have to pay in, that’s approximately an $8000 profit. … I didn’t have a day off for over a year and a half, put in 40+ hours a week on LLR alone, I missed my children’s school events because I had pop ups, hell, missed part of my children’s childhood, … the $3.85 I made an hour was not worth the sacrifices I made. ”

      The designs are still ugly, the quality still sucks, the owners are still unprofessional, the policies are still unclear, the sales tax debacle is still a debacle for many customers … and they still claim that the solution to low sales is more inventory.

      And they are re-shipping stale and damaged goods out as if it were new:
      “My friend still sells LLR and her newest shipment was ALL returns that had number stickers already on them!”
      “a friend of mine’s last shipment came with damages (with red tape on them) and even got someone else’s business cards.”

    • “Why bash something you have not experienced?”

      Because MLMing is a negative act. That’s like saying don’t bash stealing or drunk driving until you’ve tried it. This is multi-level marketing, so any experience or knowledge of statistics will do.

      MLMing qualifies as a negative act because 99% lose money and the other 1% percent make it by lying and misrepresenting facts. It’s all bad. Which group is Melinda going to end up in?

      It doesn’t matter what company you do your MLMing at, you are still an MLMer.

      Examples of words with a negative connotation: shoplifter, drunk driver, murderer, liar, manipulator, drug dealer, swindler, hustler, MLMer

    • Melinda, how does it feel to support a company whose founder, Mark Stidham, spends $2,000,000 on sports cars… not just one, but TWO, at $2,000,000 each? Mark Stidham spent $4,000,000 on toys while underlings like you pay for it all, then get to have your homes go into foreclosure, or sleep in your cars, while waiting months for promised refunds.

      https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1113641_koenigsegg-agera-rs-sets-277-9-mph-top-speed-record

      You support, defend, and participate in THAT.

    • “Why bash something you have not experienced?”

      True, I have not experienced LuLaRoe, but I have experienced someone bouncing a check to me:

      https://twitter.com/lularoefail/status/979316007310450689

      So, Imma go ahead and bash LuLaRoe for being a company run by scumbags who blow millions of dollars on technopenis enhancements while denying refunds and bouncing checks to those trying to pay rent or put food on the table for their family.

      LuLaRoe is a criminal enterprise, and YOU support and defend it.

27. ““My friend still sells LLR and her newest shipment was ALL returns that had number stickers already on them!”
    “a friend of mine’s last shipment came with damages (with red tape on them) and even got someone else’s business cards.””

    “Mark Stidham spent $4,000,000 on toys while underlings like you pay for it all, then get to have your homes go into foreclosure, or sleep in your cars, while waiting months for promised refunds.”

    No surprise there.

    Good, honest business people with a viable product do not start MLMing companies, period. Founders use MLM because they are straight up scammers, or have a crappy product that won’t survive without the fake business opportunity attached – also a scammer.

    Both scenarios are bad for all involved except for the founders and their cronies whose intentions were corrupt in the first place.

28. So if you owned a McDonald’s, you don’t actually OWN it right? Because according to your comments above, McDonald’s owns the rights to all your advertising and severely restricts how you can advertise. Oh wait… They also restrict how and when and by how much you can discount. Oh wait… And they also regulate just about everything you’re allowed to sell… Oh wait… That’s true for any franchise you ever get involved in. I don’t understand why you are so antagonistic toward this company. A lot of people are very successful participating in lularoe. There is absolutely zero requirement for me to ever add someone to my team. My sister and I run this business, and yes it is our business, and yes we own all our inventory, and we follow the guidelines of the company we are under, because that’s the way it works, but aside from that we are running our business.

    I really struggle to understand where all the animosity comes from. The only thing I can come up with is that people are upset that they didn’t come up with this idea first? I don’t really get it. People are making money, and it’s not you so that makes you mad?

    • You may own the building, but you don’t own McDonalds. You have a franchise agreement that allows you to do certain things and offers you certain benefits. Franchises are much different than MLMs. For starters, they’re actually real businesses that focus on selling something to people.

      MLMs are completely different. They’re recruiting schemes that use a product or service to cover up the fact that they’re recruiting schemes. They want you to think the important thing is the product, when really the important thing is the recruiting and getting someone to buy a huge inventory package that they have little chance of selling for a profit.

      If there’s any animosity, it’s because the MLM industry is a fraud and people are recruited with lies. It’s disgusting.

29. I have been in LuLaRoe for 3 years and it is my business. I do not have anyone under me I buy a product and sell a product. I happen to love LuLaRoe’s product. As with any company it is not perfect but they are working on improvements and I believe they will make things better with time. I didn’t make a profit until the 10th month of my business after I had paid off my initial order. I’m looking forward to retiring as a LuLaRoe Retailer and handing my business over to my daughter. This business is a commitment financially but it also is profitable if you do it the right way.

    • Charlotte – LuLaRoe is going to be out of business soon. What will you do then?

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