Avon Business Opportunity Review – Pyramid Scheme Or Legitimate?

Today we are going to do a deep dive on the Avon business opportunity. 

If you’re reading this, you were probably approached by an Avon distributor about starting your own home based business selling these products.

You might be intrigued…

But also a bit sceptical.

So you figured you should do some research before just blindly jumping into a home business without having all the information.

Good for you!

Starting a business is a big decision…

Whether that’s a home based business or an industrial sized corporation.

This is your livelihood we’re talking about.

So in this Avon review article, we are going to go deep. 

We are going to go through a brief history of the company, how this business model works, and what kind of products Avon sells.

We are also going to discuss the pyramid scheme allegations that have been thrown at this company for many years now.

Spoiler:

The business model Avon uses is called network marketing, or MLM.

While that can raise red flags for many people, I can assure you that the Avon MLM is not a pyramid scheme.

Rather, it’s a business model that can allow a regular Joe or Jane like me and you to work from home and build a very profitable business.

But it’s not all good.

Before we get into all that, let’s talk about how it all began.

How The Avon Business Started

Avon was founded in 1892 by David H. McConnell in Manhattan, New York. He originally started by selling books door to door, but decided to sell perfumes instead for larger profits.

The business originally operated under the name California Perfume Company. In 1894, Alexander D. Henderson joined the company as vice-president in order to help with shaping company policies and assist in its rapid growth.

In 1939, the company officially changed its name to Avon Products, Inc.

Initially, the products sold under the Avon name included:

• Perfumes
• Toilet waters
• Powder and rouge compacts
• Lipsticks
• Other toiletries

Fast forward to today, Avon now sells products in over 100 countries, generating over $9 billion per year. Brazil passed the United States as Avon’s largest market in 2010. 

Avon temporarily stopped operations in China when the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) banned network marketing in 1998. The ban was lifted in 2001 and Avon resumed Chinese operations in 2006.

Nearly 90% of Avon’s revenue comes from outside of North America.

Where Is Avon HQ Located?

Avon Products Inc. separated their North American operations in 2016 after North American sales volume declined for 5 years in a row.

The business now operates in North America under the name New Avon LLC.

Avon relocated their global headquarters to London, UK in 2016.

In 2020, Avon was acquired by Brazilian beauty company Natura and Co. and Angela Cretu was appointed as CEO.

Avon is currently the 14th largest beauty company in the world, with over 6 million distributors worldwide.

It is the second largest network marketing company in the world, second only to Amway.

Avon Products

In this Avon review article, we are not going to cover the products in great detail.

You came here to learn about the business opportunity after all. There are many other Avon reviews out there that talk about the products in great detail.

Avon products are separated into 11 different categories:

• Makeup
• Skin care
• Bath and body
• Hair care
• Oral care
• Fragrance
• Jewellery
• Fashion
• Wellness
• Men
• Home

Although Avon does sell some home cleaning and products for men, their brand is most well known for women’s beauty and skin care products.

In fact, Avon is likely the most well known women’s beauty brand in the world, surpassing even Mary Kay.

They sell hundreds of products and if we were to talk about each one of them, we’d be here all day.

So let’s briefly discuss what Avon is best known for:

Anti-ageing.

One of Avon’s signature products is Avon Anew Power Serum.

Please note that I have no affiliation with Avon. The video above is just for information purposes and does not necessarily reflect my own views.

To be honest, it’s quite difficult to find any science-based information about Avon products. 

The video above for example, makes the claim that the Power Serum “detects visible age damage” in order to maximise results. 

That seems rather vague.

What’s the mechanism, exactly?

They also make the claim that the product formulation is “inspired by Nobel prize winning research”… another vague statement.

It’s difficult to find out what research they are referring to.

Good marketing, but vague.

And not based on hard, transparent scientific data.

It does appear however, that there is some known merit to their claims. 

For example, the serum does contain a mix of powerful antioxidants including a fatty acid extract from a type of algae that has been proven to prevent protein oxidation in human skin.

Are Avon Products Good?

Based on thousands of online Avon reviews left by women all over the world, there seems to be a very high level of satisfaction.

While many of Avon’s claims appear to be somewhat vague and hard to substantiate, the positive reviews and volume of sales says a lot.

According to a fact sheet on the Avon Worldwide website, they sell 4 lipsticks every single second.

That’s a lot of sales…

So obviously the products are in high demand all over the world.

Where Are Avon Products Made?

Avon has third party manufacturing facilities all over the world, including China. 

In 2019, Avon sold its Chinese manufacturing facility to LG Household & Health, a company based out of South Korea.

The Chinese factory is Avon’s largest manufacturing facility and sources products from 39 countries worldwide.

How Does The Avon Business Opportunity Work?

So let’s talk about how Avon works.

The first thing that you need to understand is that being a distributor for Avon is not a job… It’s a business opportunity.

You would effectively be an independent sales contractor, or Beauty Consultant as Avon calls them.

This means that when you first get started, you will not earn any income at all…

Until you make sales.

If you don’t make any sales, you don’t make any money.

So there are two main ways in which you make income with the Avon business.

• Sell products
• Build a sales team to sell for you

Every time you sell a product, you will earn a commission.

Now to be honest, the commissions are not really that big.

It would be next to impossible to build a life changing income by just selling Avon products.

The real power of this business comes from building your own team of consultants who will sell products and build their own team of consultants.

You will earn a commission every time one of your consultants makes a sale.

But you will also earn commissions made from people who your consultants recruit… down several levels deep.

As we mentioned earlier, this business model is called network marketing or MLM. The 2 terms are used interchangeably.

Is Avon A Good Business?

Well, Avon has been BBB accredited since 1949, which should count for something. You can see it on the Better Business Bureau website.

The Avon business model really allows you to leverage other people’s efforts so that you can build a passive income stream over time.

Most small businesses don’t really give you that leverage.

Yes, a traditional small business will likely allow you to earn more money than you do at a day job…

But most small business owners spend more time at their workplace than their employees do, and they have more stress.

So you’ve essentially created your own job.

As the late Jim Rohn said:

Profits are infinitely better than wages.

And that’s what the Avon business model can offer.

It allows you to stop directly trading your time for dollars so that you can eventually free up your time and do more of the things you enjoy doing.

Avon Business Presentation

The video below is from Avon’s official YouTube channel.

Again, note that I am not affiliated with Avon in any way. The video is here for informational purposes yada yada ya…

So exactly how do Avon reps make money? Let’s dig into the compensation plan.

Avon Compensation Plan Explained

There are 4 types of compensation plans commonly used by network marketing companies:

• Unilevel
• Breakaway
• Forced Matrix
• Binary

You can learn about the differences between these 4 models in this network marketing deep dive analysis.

So how do Avon reps get paid?

The Avon compensation plan is built around the Breakaway model.

This means that you can recruit as many people as you wish to work directly underneath you in your organisation.

But with a Breakaway plan, there is a maximum depth that you can earn commissions on.

In the case of the Avon compensation plan, that maximum is 3.

This is one of the main shortfalls with the Breakaway compensation structure.

In the Binary plan for example, you can theoretically earn from an unlimited amount of “generations” in your team.

But here’s one of the bigger advantages of the Breakaway plan:

If you outperform the person who recruited you or somebody else in your upline, your positioning in the sales organisation will actually move upwards.

So if you perform better than the person who recruited you, you will also earn more money.

The truth is, all 4 of the compensation plan models have their own unique shortcomings and advantages.

This is why most network marketing companies create additional bonus incentives on top of the main pay structure.

This adds a lot of nuance and complexity to the plan.

You can read all about it in the Avon MLM compensation plan document published on the company’s official website.

Here’s all you really need to know:

As we talked about already, there are 2 ways to earn income in the Avon business:

• Sell products
• Build a sales team to sell for you

You will need to take advantage of both earning paths in order to take full advantage of the compensation plan.

We’ll talk about how to succeed in this business a bit later.

Can You Make A Living Selling Avon?

Like most things, there is not a simple yes or no answer to this question.

Is it possible to replace your full time job with an Avon business?

Yes!

Does everyone in the Avon business eventually make enough money to quit their day job?

No.

Not even close. 

In fact, the average Avon consultant earns less than $2,000 per year.

So why is that?

Well, many of the people who join the Avon business have unrealistic expectations when they first get started.

They think that they will earn life changing money in a very short period of time.

But they don’t understand that in order to succeed in the Avon MLM business, it will take time, dedication, and really hard work.

Most of the people who start an Avon business end up quitting out of frustration before they earn a significant amount of money.

It’s not that they’re incapable or lazy…

It’s simply that they had unrealistic expectations.

Which is why I am telling you the truth.

If you start your business knowing that it will take dedication and deliberate action, then you can mentally prepare yourself in order to persevere through the hard times.

How Much Can You Make Selling Avon?

It’s difficult to find a list of the top earners in Avon.

But there are credible reports of some consultants earning millions of dollars per year…

And there is no reason to doubt that.

Lisa Wilber for example, became a 7-figure earner in Avon over 10 years ago. 

She is the most well known Avon consultant in the world and has spoken on stage all over the world, teaching people how to succeed in network marketing.

Here’s her story:

You can read an interview where Lisa shares her experiences here.

Is Avon A Pyramid Scheme?

Of course we have to address the Avon pyramid scheme allegations.

Avon is an MLM company as we discussed already, which really makes the company a target for these types of accusations.

Other MLM giants such as Herbalife, Nu Skin, and USANA have been hit with these same accusations.

In fact, Herbalife even faced a class action lawsuit from the United States government under pyramid scheme allegations.

But the truth is, the Avon MLM company is a legitimate business.

Period.

Full stop.

Look, there is a fundamental difference between illegal pyramid schemes and legitimate network marketing companies.

In a pyramid scheme, you would simply pay for a position in a pyramid shaped organization.

That’s it.

That’s all you would get for your money.

There are no goods and services sold in a pyramid scheme.

And that’s really the problem.

When you have a ”business” that doesn’t provide value to the marketplace, then it’s simply not sustainable.

It’s doomed to collapse…

Because the market can not sustain a “business” that doesn’t serve the marketplace.

So then why do people get confused between MLM and pyramids?

In a pyramid, you are incentivised to recruit more people into the organisation. When you recruit somebody, you get paid.

The people at the top of the pyramid get rich, while the people at the bottom lose everything when the pyramid eventually collapses.

And in the past, there have been many illegal pyramid schemes who publicly masqueraded as legitimate network marketing companies.

When they collapsed, they received a ton of very bad press.

For good reason!

But the broader public doesn’t realize the difference between MLM and pyramid schemes, so they simply equate ALL MLM companies with illegal activity.

This has done a lot of damage to the reputation of network marketing…

And it’s why so many people mistakenly believe that Avon is a pyramid scheme.

What About The Avon Pyramid Structure?

One of the things many people point to with the Avon network marketing business is the structure that the sales organisation takes on.

It looks suspiciously like a pyramid, doesn’t it?

But have you ever thought about what a corporate structure looks like?

Looks like another pyramid scheme!

But the difference between the corporate model and network marketing is this:

In an MLM, if you are at or near the bottom of the “pyramid” structure, it is still very possible for you to out-earn any of the people that are positioned higher up in the organisation.

If you perform better, you will make more money.

But in the corporate model, it is nearly impossible for you to out-earn the CEO if you are working in the mail room.

And if you do, you would need to climb the corporate ladder, displacing other people along the way.

Network marketing is inherently more fair because the incentives are properly aligned.

Listen, humans organise themselves into hierarchies. 

It’s simply unavoidable.

It’s how we built all of our institutions and climbed our way to the top of the food chain.

Just because something looks like a pyramid scheme does not mean that it is.

Things are more nuanced than that.

Another Reasons For Avon Scam Rumors

Another reason that these negative rumours persist about the Avon multi level marketing business is because of the way it’s represented.

You see, many of the folks who start an Avon business are not professionals.

They are regular folks like you and me who are super excited about this brand new opportunity.

They are imagining themselves quitting their gruelling day job and spending time at the beach with their kids…

And when they realise that it’s not as easy as they thought, they start to become pushy.

Obnoxious.

And downright annoying.

They make exaggerated income claims to their friends and family as they’re trying to pressure them into signing up for the business.

And it just leads to the family members believing that their loved one got roped into a scam or some type of cult.

And thus, the Avon scam rumours are born.

Avon | How To Join And Succeed

So how do you know if the Avon business opportunity is right for you?

Here’s the most important thing:

Passion.

The very first network marketing company I ever joined was a health and wellness company.

It was and remains a very good company.

Well established.

Quality products.

Great people.

But I was not able to succeed with the business.

In fact, I never made more than $500 in that business.

And it’s because I simply didn’t have a passion for health and wellness.

When I talked to my loved ones about the business, I couldn’t speak about it with the conviction I needed in order to sell it.

And I gave up too easily.

I didn’t have staying power because I lacked passion.

But if you’re passionate about beauty products and you want to turn it into a career, then this could be the perfect opportunity for you!

You will need to decide that for yourself.

How Do I Start An Avon Business?

I have no affiliation with Avon so there is no way for you to join through this website.

The only way to sign up as a Beauty Consultant is through another consultant.

And since you’re researching this opportunity, chances are that somebody did reach out to you about it. If you are ready to get started, you will need to reach out to that person to get signed up.

How Much Does It Cost To Be A Avon Representative?

Getting signed up as a Beauty Consultant for Avon costs as little as $30. 

This will take care of all the paperwork plus provide you with some marketing and training material.

You will also get $100 worth of free Avon samples.

Is It Hard To Sell Avon?

Well, it’s certainly not easy.

What you need to understand is that selling Avon is not a way to get rich quickly.

You can build a wildly successful business if you build your own sales organisation, but it’s gonna take time, dedication, and hard work.

The most important thing you will need to focus on is this:

Duplication.

Remember, the way to earn a long term, sustainable income is by building a team.

So you will need to learn how to recruit people…

And you will need to learn how to make your team duplicate your success.

So don’t go out and take courses on high pressure sales tactics.

That will be utterly useless in network marketing.

Think about it…

If you learn high pressure closing, you may be able to recruit a ton of people.

But your people will not be able to duplicate what you do.

They will try, because they will look to you for leadership, since you’re the one who recruited them.

But when they realise that they can’t recruit folks the way you did, they will drop out.

And you will constantly be forced to replenish your team.

In order to achieve duplication, you need to keep your system as simple as possible.

When you get started, you will be taught a system by your team leaders.

My advice to you is that you should follow the system exactly as taught.

It has been intentionally designed to achieve maximum duplication.

Remember, your trainers are not going to steer you wrong…

At least not intentionally.

If you make more money, they make more money.

So everyone wants you to succeed.

Feel free to read this complete guide on what it takes to succeed in network marketing, start to finish.

Avon Internet Business Plan

When you start your Avon business, you will be taught to make a list of at least 100 people.

Family, friends, acquaintances, your doctor, pharmacist, etc…

And then you will be taught to introduce your products and opportunity to all those people.

While this is a fine place to start, and I absolutely recommend you do follow the training that you’re given…

You will eventually run out of people to talk to.

At this point, it might be a good idea to turn to the internet so that you can keep growing your business.

Internet marketing is really quite simple.

Again, it’s not easy, but it is simple.

Here’s a very brief outline of what you need to do to build a business like this online.

I. Build Authority

You do this by creating valuable content online that teaches people what they are looking to learn. This could be through YouTube videos, a blog, or a Facebook profile.

II. Build An Email List

Once you’ve built trust with an audience online, you need to entice them to join your email list. Create a valuable free gift to incentivise them to join your list. 

They can get the free gift only if they enter their email address into a form online and join your newsletter.

III. Sell & Recruit

Once the people are on your list, you must continue to provide value. The folks on your list should be looking forward to every email you send.

Every now and then, you can recommend a product for them to buy, so that you will earn a commission. Or you can ask them to get on the phone with you to discuss your business.

If you’ve done things the right way and built the trust and authority required, you could actually have people reaching out to you, asking how they can join your business!

That is the power of internet marketing.

This is a very simplified explanation of internet marketing.

Obviously there’s a bit more complexity to it than this.

If you want to learn more, feel free to go through this deep dive article on using the internet to grow a network marketing organisation.

Avon Review Summarised

I hope that this Avon review article served to answer all the questions you had.

My hope is that you can now move forward with confidence and conviction.

The truth is, Avon is a decent company.

They have brand recognition, they are well established, and many women all over the world use Avon products every single day.

If you have a passion for beauty and you can see yourself selling beauty products for a living, then this might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Reach out to the person who introduced you to the business to learn more.

And if there’s anything I missed, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll get back to ya, ASAP!