If there is a path that would bring a company the fastest way to be recognized by the public, it is the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry. This is the reason why a lot of cosmetic companies choose it to be their realm as it gives them the opportunity to plunder the riches in the market. Of course, it would be impossible without underlings: individual contractors. With that, each company does everything to craft the shiniest bait to get recruits. There is Avon, Mary Kay, BeautyCounter, Rodan + Fields and, of course, one of the legends… Oriflame. Nonetheless, beyond its triumph of building a throne among all other cosmetic giants, is it also capable of leading you to the path of success? Is the Oriflame business opportunity your best shot to excel in the MLM industry?
The Basics
- Company: Oriflame
- Founder: Jonas af Jochnick, Robert af Jochnick, and Bengt Hellsten
- Products: Cosmetic Products
- Website: http://oriflame.com/
- Cost to Join: £19 for Digital Starter Kit
One of the things that Oriflame boasts about is the years of its existence. This brought its remarkable mark in the industry. Founded in 1967, the Swedish cosmetic company based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland acquired its name from the royal banner used in medieval France, the Oriflamme. From this, two brothers named Jonas and Robert af Jochnick and their friend, Bengt Hellsten would bring the company to the peak of its fame.
With their dreams of creating “a different kind of company that offered a different kind of product”, the three came up with the idea of producing products using the power of the Swedish nature. It started in that same year that the three produced their first product range consisting of skin creams, lipstick and mascara made from herb and plant extracts from Sweden. The three, instead of just relying on the mainstream party style of selling products prevalent that time, also decided to produce catalogs and do the sales using the one-on-one marketing approach.
With its five decades in the MLM industry, it turned into a huge global network marketing structure of three million Consultants worldwide serving over 60 countries. With the astounding number of people working for it, Oriflame reported that it reached its $1.5 Billion annual sales that made it as the Top 15 company on the Direct Selling News Global 100 and placed it on the list of the most coveted MLM Billion Club. However, that same year, the annual report of the company stated that the number of its Consultants around the world decreased by seven percent.
As Oriflame continues aspiring to widen its influence around the globe, the company established its global production centers in Sweden, Poland, China, Russia, and Ireland.
In 2008, the company launched its Research and Development Centre which includes its clinical testing suite, Oriderm, where the products are tested using human subjects in obtaining results. It was followed by the opening of its Skin Research Institute in 2009 that aims “generating Oriflame’s next unique skin care innovation.”
With the company’s apparent success, it is undeniable that it has a tight grip on the certainty of continuing its business in the next decades coming. Nevertheless, does it also mean the same for its people?
The Products
Countless cosmetic products have been lurking around the market. With each one branding itself as the answer to the mystery of infinite beauty, anyone would feel dizzy choosing among the plethora of cosmetic choices available. However, beyond the promising claims of their efficacy, which of them can deliver it with certain safety? This is where Oriflame prides itself.
Boasting that its products are made of natural materials instead of using synthetic ones, Oriflame managed to capture the attention of the public demanding for efficient yet safe products. With the countless selections of herbs in Sweden believed to possess the power of promoting beauty, Oriflame creates products that aren’t just capable of delivering positive results but so as safety among its users. This is the reason for the company’s initiative of establishing facilities that would cater its products’ needs of being tested. The company stated:
“We go above and beyond the strictest cosmetic safety standards in the world to protect you from potentially harmful ingredients. In addition to the more than 1300 cosmetic ingredients currently banned by the European Union, we exclude an additional 60 ingredients that may be of concern.”
With it, the company employs various experts covering a variety of disciplines and areas of expertise like Formulation Science, Chemistry, Skin Science (physiology and biology), Skin Ageing and Analysis, Food Science, Nutritional Science, Clinical Testing and Instrumentation. That said, the company boasts to produce “scientifically-tested wellness and beauty products with natural ingredients” that are “inspired by nature and powered by science” through its “groundbreaking research.” With all that, Oriflame assures to produce “safe and effective skin care ranges for every skin need and type.”
Compensation: Can I Earn at Oriflame?
Behind the success of each MLM company, there lies the fact that the generality of victory comes from the hard work of each of its workers, especially through the endeavors of every individual contractor. It is the main reason why collecting a large number of recruits in the industry appears to be a tug of war among competing companies. Oriflame is one of them.
Oriflame, with its vast influence around the world, manages to reach various corners of the market to find recruits. However, and interestingly, despite the fact that the brand exists in the markets of more than 60 countries, the company is not offering the opportunity in the United States. Nonetheless, it continues to grow in other places by securing numbers of recruits to replace the number of recruits it loses every year.
With promises of luring compensations and perks, MLM companies like Oriflame present their compensation plans in the most pleasing and dazzling ways. Most MLM companies do it by highlighting numbers of compensation a prospect could receive upon joining the opportunity.
To start your journey at Oriflame, you would be asked to pay for its Digital Starter Kit that presently costs £19. This would give you access to the company’s training program and business tools and so as your very own replicated website that would serve as your online store. By sharing your link to your prospects, you would be able to make your sales and promote the company’s products.
The said starter kit is quite different from the previous offer that was used to be recommended by Oriflame. Originally, the company was offering kits consisting of products. However, as the company claims on its website, enrollees wouldn’t be able to receive physical starter kits due to the “limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Nonetheless, Oriflame continues to offer its compensations to prospects that would join the opportunity. That said, here are the various compensations being offered by Oriflame.
- Personal Staggered Discount
This is an immediate discount a Consultant could receive upon purchasing specific items at Oriflame. It starts at 20 percent for items with 0 to 99.5 Personal Bonus Points (PBP or the total of all BP accumulated by the Consultant and all VIP Customers). By reaching an amount of 100 PBP and above, the discount would have an additional 10 percent Loyalty Discount that can be used on your next product purchases.
- Unilevel Bonuses
This bonus shows the commission that could be earned of various positions on their downline members’ sales. It could go as far as five levels deep.
This bonus starts at the position of a Beauty Consultant Bronze and up to the Senior Presidential Director rank. For Level 1, the bonus starts at 8 percent for the rank of Beauty Consultant Bronze and turns into 9 percent for Beauty Consultant Silver , 10 percent for Beauty Consultant Gold, 11 percent for Beauty Consultant Platinum and 12 percent for Team Manager rank and above.
As you go to the deeper levels, your commission percentages, of course, decrease as it means that there are also other positions getting their commissions from those at the extreme bottom of the structure.
To generalize the remaining levels of the Unilevel Bonus, the Level 2 predominantly offers 9 percent for most positions, 5 percent for Level 3, 4 percent for Level 4, and a fixed 1 percent commission for all positions reaching Level 5.
- Generation Bonuses
As you reach for higher ranks, it also means that some individuals in your downline would be promoted to higher ranks. With that, generations would be produced. This would give you the benefit of earning Generation Bonuses.
The Generation Bonuses start at the rank of Director and continues up to the extremity of the rank which is the rank of Senior President Director. With that, the said rank would receive 1 percent bonus from their Personal Generation. On the other hand, the Generation 1 starts at the position of Gold Director giving the said rank and above positions 3 percent bonus. It is followed by Generation 2 that starts with Sapphire Director and offers 3 percent bonus, Generation 3 that starts at Diamond Director and offers 3 percent bonus, Generation 4 that starts at Double Diamond Director and offers 3 percent bonus and Generation 5 that starts at Executive Director rank and offers 3 percent bonus.
To qualify for the said bonuses, a Consultant must be able to meet various ranks. Here they are.
There are 15 positions in the organization of individual contractors here at Oriflame. Nonetheless, reaching these ranks, of course, entails requirements that should be met. It includes PBP, Bonus Qualified Leg (a leg with at least with one bonus-qualified Consultant anywhere in the leg), Downline Bonus Points (DBP or the total sum of all PBP accumulated by the recruiter and all Consultants in his or her downline), Strongest BP Rule (states that no more than 50 percent of the DBP requirement for a title can come from your own PBP or from any individual leg), title-qualified legs and number of Directors in your own downline.
How Much Will I Earn at Oriflame?
An income disclosure statement (IDS) plays a vital role in proving the efficacy of the compensation plans being offered by MLM companies. Most of all, IDS provides proofs whether a company is capable of creating profitable opportunities or not. Unfortunately, it is typical among companies in the MLM industry to present their IDS figures with pure complexity to conceal the truth behind the ugly reality.
Oriflame, though it is not proving its annual IDS to the public, releases its annual report. Despite the fact that the report is not directly addressing the specific annual income being earned by each individual contractor position, it gives hints of how much the company earns every year.
With that, we tried our best to scrutinize the 171-page annual report of the company. According to the document, the company had a €4.2 million “selling and marketing expenses” in 2018. With that, we assumed that the said figure represented the incentive the company allotted for its independent contractors. Now, if the company had 3.1 million Consultants in 2018 and if we would be fair to the numbers of these Consultants, doing basic math, an average Consultant earned €138.15 for the said year. That is just an average estimation. Of course, such distribution would be impossible since MLM companies use pyramid structure in its organization. That said, some individuals earn higher income than others. When that happens, and of course it will, some individuals would receive little to nothing. That is a reality in MLM companies especially in MLMs like Oriflame’s individual contractor organization that is made up of multiple levels of positions. Hence, a Consultant who has a complete 14 upline superiors above him or her would be heavily burdened by the amount of commission that would be taken away from him or her. This is due to the fact that the commission at Oriflame is charged from the earnings of the downline Consultants.
Diving In: Should I Join Oriflame?
One of the major concerns of prospects before diving into an MLM opportunity is the legitimacy of the company. With that, let me tell you right away that Oriflame is a legit MLM company. Actually, most MLM companies are legit. However, what is the reason behind the scare of people about MLM opportunities? Pyramid.
Though the MLM industry has drawn a fine line between its reputation and pyramid schemes’, the fact that it uses the same structure in arranging its organization as the latter does makes it questionable in the eye of the public.
MLM companies do it by piling the pioneers or the early joiners in the company at the topmost positions of the organization. Through recruitment, the organization would expand in the form of a pyramid structure by putting the new recruits at the bottom part of the system. However, this is where the downside of the opportunity happens.
MLM companies present the concept of “commission” as something of a perk for prospects. However, upon joining, this actually acts as a burden for new individual contractors as these commissions are taken from their own earnings.
This is the very reason why the MLM industry is considered to possess a problematic system. According to Jon M. Taylor, MBA, Ph.D. of Consumer Awareness Institute, “MLM as a business model – with its endless chain of recruitment of participants as primary customers – is flawed, unfair, and deceptive. Worldwide feedback suggests it is also extremely viral, predatory and harmful to many participants. This conclusion does not apply just to a specific MLM company, but to the entire MLM industry. It is a systemic problem.”
According to Taylor, this is the very reason why the general amount of the compensations being provided by the companies only goes to those at the top “at the expense of a revolving door of recruits, 99 percent of whom lose money.”
Weighing Things: Pros and Cons
Before you consider diving into the Oriflame business opportunity, let us first have a review of the crucial points that you should ponder.
Pros
- Oriflame is a well-established cosmetic company that has its inception dating back to 1967.
- It is a huge company that makes billions in sales annually.
- The company uses natural ingredients in the production of its products to promote the concept of safe beauty.
- Oriflame has laboratories and institutions devoted for the improvement and testing of its products.
- It is a huge company that employs more than three million individual contractors.
Cons
- With the millions of its individual contractors, it is undeniable that the market is already infiltrated with the products. This means that with that huge amount of other Consultants trying to make sales, you would probably find it hard to make your own sales.
- With its inception dating back in 1967, it means that joining the Oriflame business opportunity would take you to the bottom of the pyramid system.
- It has a long individual contractor organization composed of 15 ranks. If you would have the remaining 14 ranks above you, it means that those 14 ranks would have their hand on some portions of your earnings.
- Though the company is producing its annual report, it doesn’t directly address the need to inform the public of its Consultants’ exact earnings through IDS.
- It is an MLM. Though it is legal, the entire industry itself has a “problematic system.”
Conclusion: The Verdict
With its decades of existence, the Oriflame has the credentials to boast its business opportunity in the industry. However, despite those things, it is undeniable that the Oriflame business opportunity is filled with flaws. This proves that the success of the company can’t equate the success it could bring to its people.
It is undeniable that Oriflame business opportunity is one of the remarkable one in the industry. However, though it offers certain profit success for the company itself, do remember that it doesn’t guarantee success for everyone. With that, should you really join the Oriflame business opportunity?
Thanks for reading this article. I hope that you are enlightened not just of the Oriflame business opportunity but so as about MLM industry itself.
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