TrulaKonrad830
Is Market America a scam or is it legal?
Market America has been getting a lot of attention recently. Online forums are a buzz whether or not Market America is a Scam. The quick and straightforward answer is no...it is not a gimmick. However, after doing my research on this company I have found several troubling issues.
What exactly is Market America?
Based on Market America they're "a product brokerage and Online marketing company that specializes in One-to-One Marketing." What is One-to-One Marketing? Just a fancy term for MLM or Multi-Level Marketing. And what exactly is really a product brokerage? A fancy word for any wholesaler. They offer what they call an "unfranchise" to their members that allows the members to recruit more members and get paid commissions on their own purchases.
Exactly what do they offer?
Market America sells everything from shoes to financial lending. They do appear to really push their lines of generic health, personal care and anti-aging products. However, you don't have to purchase them there are brand name products available too.
What is the Market America Compensation plan?
The comp plan is simply plain confusing...either they don't do a sufficient job describing it or they purposefully managed to get confusing to cover what your real profits will be. So I did more research to discover precisely what their comp plan is and what their real payouts are. This is when it gets scary folks.
So I visited the marketplace America main site (not an affiliate site) and that i couldn't find any more information on their own payout structure. Hmmm...I'm wondering why? So I started a chat session with someone named Alex who kept telling me to call their field office to reply to my questions (yeah right!...like I am going to be seduced by that certain just to wind up on the hard sales call). Following a lot of persistence Alex finally told me that I may find an exhibition with an affiliate website, but that some affiliates decide to turn the presentation off. I'm wondering why they'd do this? So I did several searches and lastly found an affiliate site which had an exhibition and wow did my head start to spin. I had to view the payout structure many times to understand what they were referring to. Now we all know why most affiliates choose not to show the presentation.
First to be able to qualify to start making money you must purchase 200 BV (Business Volume) worth of product.
What's BV you ask? Yeah me too. So back to friendly but frustrated Alex in the chat center, and again I am continually told to contact their field office to answer what BV is. Well not entirely Alex does produce some rehearsed definition of what BV is but can't or maybe won't answer how much BV pertains to in dollars...you realize the funny green stuff us humans use down here on planet earth. So I returned to the forums and check engines looking everywhere for that elusive BV. Finally, I discovered it on some regional Market America Challenge site...it appears as though they challenge their visitors to purchase specific products and if you win the challenge you receive preferred seats for their conference (that you simply still have to pay for). The BV exchange rate is variable and depends upon the products sold. BV is around 60-90% from the dollar value of the merchandise. Most products appear to have a BV worth of around or simply under 80% towards the dollar. To qualify you must buy approximately $250 price of products...hmmm that's not bad I wonder why it's so secret?
Next refer a couple to qualify.
To begin earning money you have to refer a couple (who both buy 200 BV price of product) to your left and right business line.
Begin to make money!
You make money in line with the GBV (Group BV) and you are limited to 3 business lines...but wait you can include an additional two business lines by doing something they call "Re-Entry". What's Re-Entry you ask? I have not a clue and frankly I'm tired of searching to find out how to translate Market America terms and acronyms. Once both legs of the business line generates 5000 GBV each then you definitely receive $1500. So if BV equals approximately 80% and you need 10,000 BV to earn $1500 which means your business lines need to buy or sell approximately $12,500 price of product. And that means that you obtain approximately 12% commissions. Sorry for that algebra problem.
Hold on it gets better...
There is also something called IBV. I understand you are going to ask so here is what Market America defines IBV as "IBV (Incentive Business Volume) is the Unit (Point) Value allotted to an IBV Product/Service to calculate IBV Commissions". Are you currently confused yet...yeah me too. Also, now you can make much more money by registering for a Market America credit card and using it on all of your MA purchases! WooHoo!
Just how much can I make?
The marketplace America presentation will highlight how easy it's to make $10,800 a week or $561,600 annually! Ok...you want the reality right? The fact is that based off of the earnings statement for that Canadian version of the presentation only 2.07% of members make more than $80,000 and 65.75% of members make $3000 or less and 44.89% make $1000 or less per year. Tip: always see the Canadian form of a company opportunity presentation because in Canada multilevel marketing companies must disclose the particular earnings of their members. So do you want to spend time, money and effort the promote a program that has an average earnings of $1000 or less for almost 1 / 2 of their members?
In Conclusion: Is Market America Scam or Legal?
Market America isn't a scam and it is legal. However, their payout structure is very confusing and also the average members success rate is not excellent. They do seem to have a wide range of products that will be able to entice most internet buyers. If you are going to join Market America do so for the products they provide not the business opportunity. Any business opportunity in which you only make $1500 commission from $12,500 in sales is not very good for me. So my advice is to help keep looking and merely shop because you want to shop, not to earn money.
