Changes to Customer Orders Through Mary Kay Website
Written by Parsons Green
Last week, Mary Kay announced to consultants to how they will handle customer orders in the future if they are placed on marykay.com, rather than being ordered directly from the consultant.
All MaryKay.com website orders will be fulfilled by the company using the Customer Delivery Service (CDS) process. Consultants will no longer be able to fulfill website orders from inventory they have in stock at their house.
If a customer places an website order for a consultant who is active, the price charged to the consultant will still be 50% of the retail cost charged to the customer. If a consultant is inactive, then the consultant receives a 30% discount off the retail price, meaning the consultant will pay MK 70% of the retail cost. Ouch.
Imagine that. If you haven’t ordered and you’re inactive, you get penalized. But maybe you haven’t ordered in 3 months because you previously ordered a lot and have inventory on hand? You’re not allowed to use your inventory fulfill an order a customer made through the website, and you have to take the 30% of the sale that the company gives you.
This new procedure led to lots of comments by directors in the Director Tips Group on Facebook.
Monica Williams wonders about how customers will be able to use discounts offered to them, but she’s excited about options other than ProPay.
Teresa Pults Franklin likes shipping the product herself. She can personalize each package and can have more control on the method she uses to deliver.
Pam Potter Hillard states that she likes having a full inventory. She can include personal notes in each package. Amie Coffey then suggests, have the customers order directly through you. They can pay you directly, and then you can ship the product yourself. So then how would this work if you were one of Amie’s customers and she never sent you product? Would Mary Kay become involved if they can’t see any order because it was placed outside the system?
Samra Browdy Vogel explains that each consultant can adjust their personal settings to account for free shipping minimums and discounts. She also says if you’ve got customers who wanted personal delivery, to let those customers know those orders needed to be placed with the consultant directly.
Myrra Dunnick mentions that when this process is live, propay will go away.
Shari Huls Schlapman then states the thought I had when I read about this update. What is the relevance of the sales force if the company is eliminating the fulfill from inventory option?
Terrie Price agrees. This feels very close to the company moving to an affiliate model.
Melissa Lyons Hurd wonders why there will be a tiered discount structure. Brigette Haubrich Iglay mentions another company that recently made this change and hopes that these changes will ensure that the consultants will still be able to keep their careers.
Diane Critchlow brags that this won’t affect HER customers, most of them order directly from her anyway. Miss Go Give Ellen Bowman Cox has a fear that Mary Kay will be going to a no inventory business model, and that new consultants will not feel the need to carry any inventory. Ellen’s production as a director depends on new consultants placing large inventory orders. Ellen’s most likely not selling enough product on a regular basis to her regular customers and if her team isn’t bringing in production, she has to find a way and make a way and do it herself.
Amie Dunn is upset that she no longer will have the option to fulfill an order by pulling it from her shelf. Amie, how much product do you have on those shelves and how long has it been there?
Sherrie Hanes has a good point. At Seminar, she heard Ryan Rogers speak that the company was facing legislative issues due to its structure being based on rewarding consultants for large inventory purchases. Hopefully this new method will be a workaround but hopes that there will still be options where you can fulfill local orders without the need for shipping.
Nina Elliot has a lot of questions, including the concern that FedEx has not been a good shipping partner for her customer’s orders.
Valerie Cashin has 50-60% of her customers doing local pickup. She hopes that it does not go away.
Lizi Quinn is fired up because this is her PERSONAL BUSINESS. She should NOT be required to fulfill orders a certain way and would like this autoship feature to be turned OFF. It is her BUSINESS. (As an independent contractor, it’s not really your business Lizi, and Pink Truth has been telling you that for nearly 20 years!)
Kimberly Cavarretta has been in Mary Kay 43 years. She trusts the company.
Ellen Bowman Cox jumps back into the conversation to again state that she is worried she may lose her director title.
Chris Thurston Whitcher ponders that a new customer will see she can save 30% by just signing up (an not being active) and sign up herself.
Jackie Hopkins Craver is worried how this will even work, when Mary Kay has been trying for two years to make InTouch work.
Emily Schuette thinks this change will be positive. New consultants will have no problem signing up and be able to sell sell sell right away. Again, if the new consultant can sign up so easily, why would she need a sales director?
Ellen Bowman Cox jumps back in again to mention another Facebook group where consultants are openly selling discounted product to customers. She has tried to get both Facebook and Mary Kay to shut this group down but has had no luck.
At the end of the day, Mary Kay is a privately owned company. All of their consultants and directors are independent contractors, and the company can change anything about their sales agreements at anytime.
As a sales director, how will you sell a new consultant on a large inventory package if this new method shows that inventory is no longer needed?
And how about those comments about the company potentially moving to an “affiliate” model?No need for sales directors anymore, and people would only get paid on actual sales to customers, not on large inventory orders that collect dust in the basement. Things are getting interesting. I think I’m going to go get some popcorn….
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Whoo boy. Popcorn all around! Thanks PG!
This is called “boiling the frog”.
The company is slowly numbing the sales force so once they go to an affiliate model, it won’t be so shocking and the sales force will have diminished greatly.
Car requirements continue to increase and going to the electric Cadillac eliminates many choosing that car. Consultant level car is gone.
This is a huge savings for the company. And, will be another “reason” to eliminate the car program.
Home parties are a thing of the past. Ultra and Sephora are packed everyday at anytime. Influencers are driving the beauty industry now. Mary Kay just didn’t hop on the social media bandwagon soon enough.
Just hope the salesforce in their 40s and up have a backup plan for their future.
1. Ellen, if you and your unit aren’t SELLING enough to sustain your directorship, you don’t deserve to keep it.
2. Mary Kay isn’t going to get rid of inventory until they go fully affiliate-only. They can’t afford to. They know that most of the products they produce end up moldering in consultants’ garages and basements. The only way to maintain the business on the sales that end up in the hands of actual consumers is by reducing their bloated expenses (hello, nsd commssions!).
3. This is a terrible move for consultants. The margin on CDS orders is razor thin because of the cost of shipping and credit card processing fees. Many of those orders from inactive consultants who are only getting a 30% discount will end up losing money for the consultant.
Regarding a possible move to an affiliate model, I think perhaps Ellen should try to mend fences with “that website.” It may be her only option in the future to move the massive amounts of product that must be cluttering her house.
And God forbid that anybody should be able to make money doing that, as she complained in one of her posts. Sheesh.
Not “website”–Facebook group.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait…
The Vainglorious EBC says that it’s harder and harder to get new consultants to understand that they NEED to carry inventory, yet all of MK’s own propaganda says that holding inventory is totally optional. A solid citizen and friend to all like Ellen Bowman Cox wouldn’t LIE in order to protect her own position, would she?
Of course she would.
The sooner MK goes affiliate and gets rid of these parasites the better.
You know, I’d disrespect MKorporate less if they’d just rip off the band-aid and announce they were going affiliate as of [date] instead of putting their “sales” force through this death by a thousand cuts. It would be beneficial to them, as they could scale manufacturing way the hell back (when they don’t need to ship out tons of “production” every month that’s destined to sit in a garage then in a landfill). This would mean saving a hell of a lot on shipping, warehouse space, and logistics, too, not to mention being able to fire a whole lot of (factory) production, warehouse, and maintenance staff into a truly sucky job market.
I know they won’t, because it would result in their true customers quitting en masse and not making them any money, returning their inventories en masse and making them give back money (even worse!), and a LOT of angry phone calls and emails (the worst!)
To the lurkers out there, the handwriting is pretty clearly on the wall. Get out now and don’t do business with a shady company that only sees you as a walking wallet.
Maybe MK is trying to distance themselves from being a pyramid scheme. Being a director based on what people below you order is a bad image. IMO, the company is not doing well.
Plus, I though most MK people had very few customers?
Ellen Bowman Cox jumps back in again to mention another Facebook group where consultants are openly selling discounted product to customers. She has tried to get both Facebook and Mary Kay to shut this group down but has had no luck.
I wonder how many of the other consultomers had no idea about that FB page and are now scrambling to sell their 2011 Raison Berry lippies.
This is going to cause consultants to quit in my opinion. If they are sitting on a full inventory and their customers ( especially their out of town customers) like ordering online but the consultant can’t fulfill the order from that inventory, what’s the point? The convenience of ordering online is that you can do it anytime of day. Customers are not going to order directly from a consultant at 3am. Lol
So the future is I guess you CAN sell from an empty cart after all!
I think Mary Kay Corporate needs to prepare for a barrage of returned inventory.
“At Seminar, she heard Ryan Rogers speak that the company was facing legislative issues due to its structure being based on rewarding consultants for large inventory purchases.”
You have no idea how hard I am cackling, it’s about dang time Mary Kay suffered the consequences of acting like the law doesn’t apply to them.
They’re barreling towards getting rid of the MLM model SO FAST.
We just all witnessed together Lizi Quinn realizing she doesn’t own her own business. Bless you.
And meanwhile, ToP dIrEcToRs are on their trip. Enjoy your last one ladies.