A Consultant’s Experience With My Shop
Let’s hear from a consultant who has been in Mary Kay for almost 40 years. She is not impressed with this whole system and the fact that consultants can’t really service their customers well in it.
This new Mary Kay website system has been a huge step backwards.
I’ve been with Mary Kay since 1986, and many of my customers have been with me just as long. One of the reasons our business has continued to thrive for decades is because Iʻve never hounded people. Customers appreciate being able to order online on their own terms without feeling pressured or constantly contacted, and I completely understand and support that approach.
What I object to is losing control of basic business functions.
Every year I offer an annual 20% off sale, but with the new system, no longer have the ability to apply discounts online unless the order is at least $100 before tax and shipping. Even though I advised customers to contact us directly for discounted orders under $100, after years of encouraging customers to order online, many naturally still placed their orders through the website — only to receive no discount at all.
We’ve also lost the ability to properly control shipping settings.
Because I live both in Hawaii and on the mainland, enabling free shipping can literally mean paying $37 to ship something as small as an eyeshadow to Hawaii. A company the size of Mary Kay should absolutely have the ability to set different shipping rules for different regions and should also be able to negotiate far better shipping rates to areas outside the continental US. Our own ecommerce business ships to the mainland daily from HI and is able to offer significantly better shipping rates than what we’re seeing through this system.
Today I called corporate trying to find a way to refund customers who should have received their 20% discount. For the first time in all my years with Mary Kay, I encountered a rude representative with an attitude. I was told there was no way to refund customers, no solution available, and supposedly no supervisor to speak with.
So now I’ll personally have to mail checks or send Venmo payments just to make things right for loyal customers.
What’s especially frustrating is that these limitations have nothing to do with FTC regulations some mention. I run my own ecommerce business outside of Mary Kay and can easily refund customers through my Stripe account, create discounts, and set customized shipping rules.
From my perspective as someone with years of ecommerce experience, it increasingly feels like Mary Kay no longer truly needs consultants.
The company now controls the website, payments, shipping, and fulfillment. At this point, consultants have essentially spent years building customer bases that Mary Kay can continue selling to whether we are involved or not.
I recently completed a survey about the new website and gave very honest feedback. The entire experience felt more like dealing with Amazon seller support than the Mary Kay company I’ve known since 1986.
Visit the
“ The company now controls the website, payments, shipping, and fulfillment. At this point, consultants have essentially spent years building customer bases that Mary Kay can continue selling to whether we are involved or not.”
Because in reality those customers have NEVER been yours. You spent 40 years building a customer base for Mary Kay Cosmetics.
It’s in the agreement that MK own the customer list. The consultant only owns stockpiles of debt and unsellable inventory. MK are getting rid of consultants and marching swiftly to either selling up or going full affiliate and will likely do so by the end of the year. Forty years of being in MK and they are yanking the rug out from under loyal consultants as they simply don’t care.
Pay
Pay the price
Pay, for nothing’s fair
Hey
I’m your life
I’m the one who took you there
Hey
I’m your life
And I no longer care
I understand your point, but I have not seen language in the agreement stating that Mary Kay “owns” the consultant’s customer list. In fact, the agreement still specifically refers to the consumer as “the IBC’s customer” and states that “the ultimate sale is between the Consumer and IBC.”
As ecommerce sellers, we’re very familiar with the difference. Amazon’s policies make it very clear that sellers are operating on Amazon’s platform with Amazon controlling the marketplace, payments, customer communications, and much of the customer relationship. Mary Kay’s agreement language has historically framed the relationship differently.
My point was that while the wording in the agreement may still describe the customer as belonging to the consultant, the operational structure under MyShop now resembles a far more centralized platform model than what many long-time consultants historically operated under.
When a customer places an order using Stripe/MyShop, Mary Kay is the merchant on record. They are Mary Kay customers. Consultants are just third parties.
Here’s an idea: Sell your Mary Kay inventory on your ecommerce web site. Then you will have total control. You can also buy some of your Mary Kay inventory from GOOB sales allowing you a much greater margin for those MK sales, and enabling even greater discounts than you can offer now.
Take control like the true ebusiness owner you claim to be.
“but…but that’s unethical and steals from other consultants and is against your agreement!!” shrieketh her NSD. But yes that’s the only way to make money in MK – buy from GOOBers and sell it at a reasonable price. No quotas of $250 every 3 months in a pay to play game. I have no idea how easy it would be as there’s about 40,000+ listings on eBay from other desperate consultants trying to recoup their losses as there’s little real world demand for MK outside the game and no real outside customer demand. If MK really was a retail business they wouldn’t care about people selling on eBay et al (Rimmel don’t pitch a fit about it as it means more sales for them) but alas this doesn’t generate money inside the pyramid. MK’s income solely comes from inside the pyramid unlike a real business who depend on retail sales outside the pyramid to generate income thus proving it’s all about recruiting and frontloading at MK.
Or better yet do the 90% buyback and get out of the sinking ship before MK goes bloop, sells up or goes affiliate by the end of the year.
goobers. heh heh.
Ok, I’ve matured past kindergarten now. I appreciate your indulgence.
In all seriousness, of all the changes made, the new My Shop seems to be the biggest step towards going affiliate. Or selling the business, if corporate can prove sufficient consumer demand. Ha!
I loled too when I first heard of GOOBers. MK will struggle to show retail customer demand as nobody outside of the pyramid wants MK. Those rare folks that do aren’t sufficient for selling the company. Anyone that wants MK can just buy on GOOB Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, etc from consultants going out of business. MLMs are unattractive for buyers as there’s a poor reputation of the industry and the companies, subpar overpriced products and a limited customer base. Coty dumped Younique as it was making a huge loss for them so who knows what MK’s ultimate fate will be. Total shutdown or affiliate? Only time will tell. I’d be VERY surprised if a mainstream holding company would be interested as MLMs are just an albatross around their necks and there’s plenty of brands in their portfolios already as it is.
Just for my own amusement I picked up some Fancy Nancy lip gloss (still good, not expired) from a reseller site. It cost less than on Mary Kay, no pressure to be recruited, and the reseller threw in a sample of a cleanser as a gift. If I wanted more (the color does look good on me) why would I ever buy from a consultant or the Mary Kay site?
Ryan due to his falling out with Stepmom Dearest renamed it Fancy Coral. So now the IBCs with Nancy on their shelves can’t sell it as it won’t appear in the Look Book and they’ll have to put in more orders for new lipgloss as customers won’t want Nancy but Coral despite it being the same identical colour. I would argue that calling it coral is a bit of a stretch as it’s more natural than coral but I suppose it could pass for a muted subtle coral under the right lighting conditions. There was a PT article last week with annoyed SDs about the name change and the fact that they will now have unsellable inventory except via eBay as customers will want the new name. Fancy Nancy was a bit of a cult classic (excuse the pun, intended) in MK and very popular, the new coral name could be a bit offputting as coral can sound intimidating as it’s usually a vibrant orange-hot pink that not everyone wants or can pull off.
There’s a LOT of MK on eBay at rock bottom prices. IBCs can’t compete with that sadly and there’s literally tens of thousands on Facebook and Craigslist too. But that doesn’t matter to MKC as their income is sourced from inside the pyramid than outside it. As long as frontloading goes on they are happy.
If you want an MK eye makeup remover dupe Nivea’s one is identical.
The $64 question is, what are you going to do about it? By this point it’s obvious that the system isn’t going to change. They’ve had months to fix this incredibly janky system and haven’t. You’ve gotten no help from customer service and there’s no reason to believe your feedback will make a bit of difference.
If you own an actual e-business you know the difference between something that’s yours and minding the shop for someone else. Do you want to keep on with Mary Kay knowing that they’re going to do as they please with “your” business?
The MyShop debacle is a feature not a bug IMHO. My theory is that it was designed specifically to drive away consultants so they can get rid of them and sell/go affiliate. it’s working as designed which is why consultomer support aren’t interested. The writing is very clearly on the wall an we can see it but those in the pink bubble can’t see it sadly and will be the most affected when the MK Titanic goes bloop. I am angry for these women in debt that will be well and truly shafted even more by MK when they pull the rug from under their feet. MK is even scummier than I thought and they have done a LOT of scuzzy things in the last 60 years. In AUS/NZ when they shut down they did with no warning. InTouch 404d and an email saying “goodbye and thanks for the fish.” Customer lists deleted, no way to get the 100% buyback they promised. MK just vanished into thin air with no warning not even to corporate staff. Just *poof* into thin air as if they never existed. That’s what’s going to happen this time around I would expect, leaving a trail of debt and heartbreak in it’s wake like the AUS/NZ folks suffered with.
But that’s assuming MKorp thinks it needs to be fixed. This may be exactly what they want.
100% was designed that way IMHO. It’s not a bug it’s a feature. I highly doubt it’s possible for any programmer to be that incompetent. It has to be designed that way. I’ve met very shonky software in my time but nothing remotely as bad as this and I managed up to 2019 a credit union’s Windows 2000 frontend running in Internet Explorer with ActiveX as a GUI! It’s just not possible for it to be accidental or due to incompetence, it’s designed that way and is functioning as MK intended to drive away consultomers as they march steadily to affiliate or a sale of the company.
Yes … any halfway decent programmer can set up a CRM and inventory package, and there’s eleventy dozen of them out there, and a couple dozen that could handle Mary Kay.
Where it’s stripping the customers from the IBCs is with the “do you want to keep your personal info private” and POOF that active customer vanishes from the IBC’s records.
I remember setting up a free open source ERP as part of my business degree in the IT part of the course when I did the Linux module which was an additional course I did for a year as part of my Red Hat certification. I think it was OpenBravo, if I remember correctly. There’s no excuse for MK as there’s literally open source free software out there that’s cross platform – Mac OS, Windows, various Linux flavours and frontends that run on iOS and Android handheld devices for POS applications. It does CRM as well as ERP and POS. Or did I don’t think OpenBravo is around any more but there’s a trillion and one alternatives at no to low cost. Even self-hosting is easy to do, it was self-hosted on the university’s server via Groupware VM and THAT was a boondoggle and a half, this was 2012 and we were still running a mix of Windows 2000 Server and XP Pro with an outdated version of RHEL for the Linux module, but I cheated and put Ubuntu on my Samsung laptop which required translating RPM to DEB and back again for programming. Happy memories of dependency hell… And don’t get me started on the Windows 7 debacle, the university upgraded eventually from Win 2K and XP and THAT was a bigger boondoggle with numerous problems of Office 2010 and Project 2010 refusing to work because Jupiter was in retrograde. The lecturer’s desktops would often bluescreen and then totally lock out after a reboot in the middle of classes and go into an infinite BSOD loop. Tech support was overrun with tickets. Even the videoconferencing for remote students didn’t work properly and we’d have to watch recordings which would usually be half a class and then various BSODs. In 2013 we ended up resorting back to a correspondence course, how any of us learned anything is a miracle in itself. The university now uses Mac OS. I can’t imagine why…
I don’t miss working in IT at all. I’d pay a king’s ransom to see MK’s backend, knowing MK it’s probably a 1998 IBM rack with hamsters on a wheel as processors, rather aptly as that’s what IBCs and directors get trapped on. A hamster wheel from hell that goes nowhere.
Thank you for that, Dave! I actually like the eye makeup remover and am coming to the end of my leftover bottles. I really did not want to give any more money to mk, they got enough from me over the years.
Yeah the Nivea is great. It works wonders on my GF’s false eyelashes too. She has sensitive eyes and can get irritated red eyes from other brands of eye makeup remover which is a bit of a problem for a professional MUA that specialises in bridal work. I think it was something like £5 on Amazon. It’s got identical ingredients to the MK, probably made in the same factory. It’s certainly the same formula but at 1/5 the price and is available everywhere. And best of all, no pressure selling needed, no recruitment spiel, no guilt tripping, no manipulation, no supporting a scammy pseudo-business. Just pop it in your cart when grocery shopping at Target or Walmart. Interestingly we have Walmart in the UK as ASDA is owned by Walmart (or was IDK if it still is I think Walmart offloaded it to another holding company a while ago IIRC).
I’d also suggest olive oil if you want natural/vegan products. It’s non-comedogenic too and I’ve noticed a difference in my skin. It sounds very counterintuitive if you have acne to use oil on oily skin but I’ve noticed less breakouts and a smoother texture as my skin was stripped too much from high concentration BHA cleanser so it produced more oil to compensate and made the problem worse, it’s settled down now I’ve added oil to my regimen and use tea tree and eucalyptus cleanser and a Korean charcoal mask.
I have a very cynical theory about why My Shop exists. The company is losing money, as we know, so they’ve magically found a way that MKorp makes 70% instead of 50%.
So many Office quotes I could put here.
Ryan cost the company millions.
Ryan is like a son to me.
Ryan’s big project was the website (also applies the “NeW aND iMproVed” InTouch).
Etc.
“I was told there was no way to refund customers, no solution available, and supposedly no supervisor to speak with…The company now controls the website, payments, shipping, and fulfillment.”
I don’t understand why consultants continue to complain, but then stay in MK. It’s not like there’s a nice pension and benefits package waiting for them if they stay. They’re just continuing to waste time and money.
Real businesses know when to shut the doors.
“I don’t understand why consultants continue to complain, but then stay in MK. It’s not like there’s a nice pension and benefits package waiting for them if they stay. They’re just continuing to waste time and money.
Real businesses know when to shut the doors.”
Real businesses certainly do know when to shut the doors, but not when a business requiring very little time and attention is still profitable.
My customer base was built years ago and continues to purchase because I created systems that made ordering easy and reliable, without constantly contacting or pressuring them. I havenʻt seen or talked to most in years, other than maybe an occasional email, which has worked very well.
And yes, I do agree with those who believe much of this is financially driven and likely intentional. The handwriting is on the wall in that regard.
Might be due to FTC because it may look like you are giving a discount to get numbers for quota. Thus….$100 min to give a discount….