Quit Mary Kay and Send Your Products Back
When you’re being recruiting into Mary Kay, the “buyback guarantee” is always touted. You can try Mary Kay “at no risk” because you can return any products you purchase and get 90% of what you paid for them. (How is that no risk? You’ve just lost 10% immediately.) The use it as a selling point, but fail to tell you that if you ever decide to quit and send back you’re products, they’re going to put the squeeze on you to NOT do it.
This woman found out on Facebook when she asked a group of MK consultants and directors for ideas, since she was bothered by the fact that the products she sends back will be destroyed. This woman says she cannot afford to keep the Mary Kay products. And the responses include some really awful things. The two worst ones:
It is absolutely awful for Lona Holdridge and Kimberly Cregger to emotionally manipulate the original poster in this way. She said she cannot afford to keep the inventory. In other words, she needs to exercise the buyback option to be financially okay. And they want her to damage her own finances because of the dreams of others and the commission chargeback?
The original post and other comments below:
Visit the
I just want to say to Lona Holdridge, who donates products right before they expire:
Great. So you make the recipient responsible for throwing away YOUR unsellable garbage, because god knows charities don’t have anything better to do. Plus you get to be seen doing an ostensibly Good Deed.
You suck.
I just read Heather’s comment below about these “generous” donors who looking for a tax write-off. So Lona’s unloading her garbage on someone else and getting a tax credit on it.
I hope the IRS audits her.
The funny part is the shelter won’t take those items. They will tell you to pound sand as they hand you a list of what they NEED.
The very very best donation to a shelter: money. They can buy what they need, and they often have relationships with vendors to get things at a discount that is not available to others. I learned this from the woman who coordinated a food drive at our (small) company every year.
Yes, Popinki. Yes, she does.
To sum up…
You don’t have to stock MK inventory, but if you don’t, you won’t qualify for the discount. In other words, you have to stock inventory and regularly restock if you want to sell Mary Kay at a margin. And nothing about this restocking is tied to actual sales, which is why it piles up, and needs to be returned, donated or sold at a loss in a GOOB sale.
If someone I loved really wanted to try selling Mary Kay, I would advise them to buy some deeply discounted product from a GOOB sale and make a go of it. Mary Kay has no jurisdiction here, and can do nothing to stop this budding new business owner. And unlike Mary Kay consultants, this person would be a real business owner! She can sell other products as well to round out her offering, and she can switch product lines at any time.
But most importantly, she is in full control of her costs, prices, marketing…the stuff real business owners control. And she can discover just how difficult it is to make any money selling retail products from her home, all without being tangled up with a company carrying all the manipulative baggage that comes with MLM.
Looking on Ebay, there are literally over 48,000 listings for unsold Mary Kay products people are looking to unload. Plenty of deeply discounted product at quite a selection to go around. I wonder how much actually gets sold this way. Just looking at a page full of listings scheduled to end in the next couple hours, there is not a single bid.
And to Dorsey van Scoic, the OP of the Facebook thread:
Please don’t let them guilt you into keeping product you can’t afford and can’t sell. Your director and recruiter lied to you about how sellable the stuff was right from the get go. It was their greed and selfishness that landed you in this predicament – all they wanted was the commissions they got for recruiting and frontloading you.
It’s great that you’re concerned about the environment, but one batch of makeup thrown away isn’t going to either save or kill the planet. It’s going to get thrown away one way or another, whether the company does it, you do because it expires and you’re stuck with it, a charity does because it’s unusable for whatever reason, or you give it to someone and they chuck it.
Please do what you know is right for you and your family, if you have one. Send the stuff back, block everyone on your upline every way you can. If you need help, check out the messageboard here and you’ll get lots of helpful advice.
https://www.pinktruth.com/returning-mary-kay-inventory/
Here’s how to return what you can.
Kimberley Cregger Don’t send it back. it will come off your directors unit production and commission that she will have to pay back.
Shannon Sparks Trent Kimberley Cregger That’s a selfish reason to do something or not do it. If she can’t afford it, she shouldn’t keep it.
Thank you Shannon for calling Kimberley out.
This is yet another reason why MK/MLMs do not deliver what they blithely promise. It’s full of hidden costs at all levels. Dorsey’s director and the rest of her upline are going to financially impacted if she sends her inventory back. But they have already been rewarded with both money and praise for her initial purchases.
Crystal Gallagher #1 director nationwide Waverly Wismer…she’s an introvert and she did hand facials this past year and she and her unit added $1 million in retail sales. Let me know if you’d like to learn how and what she did and I’ll send you the link to her training. (purple multi-heart emoji)
I wonder if Ms. Wismer’s success is less due to her hard work and more to the fact that she was given her “business” from her family. She wasn’t starting as an IBC She had parties thrown for her by her NSD mother and then she lucked into two superstars who are recruiting and ordering enough to keep the unit afloat.
“parties thrown for her by her NSD mother” … born on 3rd base, hits a single and thinks it’s a home run.
A former colleague volunteered at a local women’s shelter for many years. She said that amount of MK and MLM crap they get is insane, and every “donor” wants a tax receipt. The women don’t want that stuff. Sure, they need toiletries and personal care items, yet they really need clothes and shoes, a safe place, things for their children, and food. They don’t NEED a bucket of lipsticks.
Neither local charity store (or the homeless shelters) will accept the usual range of MLM personal products: No makeup, nutritional crap, wax melts, oils. Because NO ONE WANTS IT. They will take moisturizing lotions and sunscreen … that’s practical and gets used.
Yep… unscented body washes, lotions, deodorant, toothpaste, and sunscreen — those are the items they need. The other item that is also requested a lot is toilet paper.
Tampons and pads are another major need, as are diapers and baby wipes.
Oh yeah … take the loss so the witch who recruited you gets to keep some of your money and Mary Kay keeps the rest? And you have a shelf full of makeup that no one wants to buy.
You will get back 90% of the cost of the product PLUS 100% OF THE PREPAID TAXES … that could be considerable.
Quoting the Bible. About shilling cosmetics. 🤦♀️ And ya’ll wonder why we have beef with you.
If the directors are so concerned about a potential chargeback why not buy it from the consultant?
So true. If these products “flew off the shelves”, consultants would be happy to take inventory off the fellow consultants at “cost”. But we all know no one is really selling the product, because there is no demand outside of the network. Especially since no one gets “credit” for buying from a fellow consultant.
As a thought experiment, what if every close friend of an MLM rep would agree that any gifts to the MLM rep must be products from the rep’s own MLM? Birthdays, holidays, weddings, showers…everything. Everyone should buy them gifts strictly from their MLM (preferably from GOOB sales or eBay) until they finally quit the MLM. “I know how much you love these products…you talk about them all the time. Enjoy!”
How could the consultant have anything bad to say about such a gift? They love the products, after all! If we all did this, these huns would get the message in short order. Until they leave this MLM, the only gifts they will receive from F+F will be inventory from their own MLM. It will suck for them, but the last thing they can say is, “please stop buying me products I profess to love!”
DJ, you’re kind of evil and I think I love you 🤣
“Everyone should buy them gifts strictly from their MLM (preferably from GOOB sales or eBay)” But NOT from the target’s inventory … because you want it to be a surprise.
“This is a get rich slowly over time program.” lol.lol.lol. I guess, if you just ignore the mountains of debt consultants & directors.
Also, the quoting of Scripture in this context makes me rage. “Let us not tire of doing good…” I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure the author is not referring to keeping over-priced make-up no one wants so your upline doesn’t get a chargeback as “doing good.”
“Sell it, girl. Just do 30 faces.” Wow, how insightful! I’m sure the OP never thought of that.
That’s the piece of advice that appears in every thread and always makes me want to bonk my head against the wall. If the stuff was so easy to sell, SHE’D HAVE SOLD IT ALREADY! Jeez!
If it was so easy to do 30 faces and “just sell it,” wouldn’t she have already done that? 🤦🏽♀️
“Jenn Figorito: If you send back not just your Director, your recruiter too, will have to pay back commissions. And if they too are struggling, not so easy. Just keep it all in mind.”
No. There is a solution to this. Any director who is paid commissions by the company on the downline’s WHOLESALE purchases should not consider that commission to be “spendable” UNTIL they have confirmed one of these: 1) the product was sold to a customer; 2) the purchaser is using it for personal use/gifting/whatever; 3) the product was purchased over one year ago. In other words, until that product cannot be returned to MK for the buy back. It is not legitimately-earned commission until then.
The upline shouldn’t consider that commission to be “earned” until the product has gone to its end point (customer, personal use, over a year, etc).
Every time I see a director whining about chargebacks I think of this. It infuriates me. I will die on this hill Mary Kay hill.
Yay, my first Ridiculous Downvote ™ in a while! Thank you, lurking Director! And consider replying to my point and explain how it’s unfair or whatever.
Because Jenn when you recruited you told your would be prospect they had nothing to lose and they could return it. So who cares about her financial situation it’s everyone’ else’s you care about. Go pound lipstick.
Exactly!
Also, if the directors and recruiters were making the executive income they claim, a little charge back would be just a tiny blip on their radar.
Public Service Announcement:
ALL make-up is disposed of. Whether in its original container or not, that make-up ends up in landfills and waterways. It just does. Whatever doesn’t fall off by itself during the day goes in the trash or down the drain at the end of each day. Whatever does fall of gets swept up (trash), washed away be rain (waterways), etc. None of it has any lasting value. It’s used and disposed of. Don’t beat yourself up about it being disposed of; that’s what will happen to it, anyway.
And if you give it to some charity, it’ll sit on their shelf unclaimed, and then they’ll have to dispose of it. That is far from charitable. Send it back to Mary Kay with a clear conscience.
MK doesn’t always dispose of returned product. I had some MK product I ordered that already had a director’s re-order sticker on it with her name, address, and phone number. It was not a small amount of product.
The box and product looked in great condition, except for those re-order labels.
I really wish I called the company and asked questions, but I was new at that time & confused. It didn’t occur to me they sent me retuned product. I thought I mistakenly got someone else’s product by mistake.
Let’s be clear that Waverly’s unit did not “sell” a million. She had several Offspring recruit and move up and out of her unit. Sales are not at all what Seminar rewards are based on.
Send it back. You’ll get all that money back faster than you can sell it, and it’s an huge burden lifted when the pressure is gone. Even felt good having my pink Cadillac picked up.
I had a career as an independent sales agent, a real one, not a fake one like Mary Kay.
And my customers were almost always allowed to return product ( although if it had been opened we would charge a small restock charge) AND still remain customers in good standing. Most of my customers returned product at sometimes, their customer might have cancelled or it just didn’t sell as well as they had hoped ( I was working for the manufacturer and selling to distributors and other resellers.)
The goal was to get the product to real customers, not to stick out resellers with product they couldn’t sell.
I wasn’t crazy about returns because I had to give back the commission (this is pretty universal) and sometimes I’d try to help my customer find someone that wanted to buy it, but I still made crazy money in sales and returns happen in every business, except MLM’s.