Usborne Children Books review
Company: Usborne
Website: www.usborne.com
Type: MLM
Products: Children’s books
Rating: 4/10
Will Usborne children books scam you?
Whether you are someone that wants to buy the books or you want to make use of their compensation plan, this article is for you. The name of this company is Usborne and it sells children’s books. It also uses an MLM type compensation plan to mass market these books.
This company is also not for anyone because it targets a very specific niche and that niche is in the parent’s category. Now before you get excited about the compensation plan of this company, you need to analyse the success rate of people that goes into MLM.
I can just guess that one of your colleagues, friends, family members or even a stranger introduced you to this business opportunity. You also feel good because this person has laid out a “business plan” for you and also showed you the income potential that you can generate after a specified number of months.
The real truth is that only a few people will really make money with MLM and if I am talking about a few then I mean less than 1%. Are you going to be part of that 1 percent? I doubt that, but please do not take this statement as offensive because I do not know how much experience you have or if you are a marketing genius.
The point is that if you are completely new to this industry, you are almost definitely going to fall under the 99% that does not make enough to scoff about.
Usborne Children Products
There are over 30 different types of books that you can buy or promote. One thing that I really disliked is that they
only sell it in paperback format. It does not look like they are selling it in PDF format like most of the other books that you can buy from Amazon.
The types of books include the following:
- Fairy tales
- Christmas books
- Colouring books
- Dinosaur books
- Science books
- Sticker books
- etc.
Compensation plan
Like most MLM companies there are 2 ways to promote the products from this company:
1. Direct Selling
To do this, you need to become a consultant. As a consultant you can sell the books and earn a 25% rate which is not bad. When I went through the compensation plan I noticed that you are recommended to host parties at your house where you can sell the books.
I do not think you need to buy all the books to resell it, but you will get a brochure of all the books that are available from the Usborne website. You will also receive a DVD that will teach you how to through a host party for these books.
2. Team Building
This is where the MLM part comes in. You as an individual will have to build a team or a downline of consultants. Here is where you will become a supervisor over your consultant. As a supervisor you will get a commission rate of 11% of what your team makes. This is actually a very straight forward compensation plan which is a plus.
Should you join Usborne?
This is a question that only YOU can answer. If you are a parent with enough marketing experience that sees any potential with this, then you might just become one of the 1%. But if you just stumbled upon this website as a total newbie with the goal to make money, then this is not for you.
MLM looks like a very attractive model to go for because of the whole team building, but it is not as easy as it looks. To think of it, it really does not matter whether you are good at marketer or not because you are dependent on the success of your downline. If your team does not make money, then you will not make any money.
With keeping that in mind, you also need to be able to teach your downline how to promote the products. There are also other ways than MLM to earn a passive income and I am about to tell you what it is.
My alternative to MLM
There are many other more secure ways to earn a passive income and I have found a way that makes it very profitable for me. I have been doing affiliate marketing for over a year by the time you are reading this article and I have not looked back ever since.
Affiliate marketing is where you partner with companies such as Amazon, E-bay, Clickbank and Rakuten Linkshare to promote their products. If you sell one of their products, you will earn a commission. If you can build a website (Which is easier than you think) then you can scale your business with ease.
Here is the 4 steps of affiliate marketing:
- Choose a niche. There are hundreds of niches out there and thousands of smaller ones also. There is no limit to the amount of niches that you can dig into and dominate.
- Build a website. With the help of an awesome training center, you can have your very own website up and running in less than 10 minutes. To build the website is the easiest part really.
- Drive customers to your website. Are you reading this post? Yes you are. How did you find this post? You found it through Google. There you have it.
- Make money. This is the sweet part because once your website and articles are up and running and you have partnered with an affiliate network, then you will start to make money.
>Click here to start your own affiliate marketing business<
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Hi Valie:
All of the article I have read so far, this MLM review was my favorite one. As a children’s librarian, I find it so sad that MLM schemes would use something so seemingly innocent as children’s books to try and bring people into their MLMs schemes. How right you are that only 1% of MLM marketers find success. I believe most MLMs are set up to make you fail.
I really liked your chart on comparing affiliate marketing to MLM schemes. That is a very clear and easy to understand chart and I cannot see anyone thinking that MLMs lead to more success than affiliate marketing after reviewing your chart. You highlighted everything very well.
Thank you for your website and exposing all of these MLMs. I enjoyed perusing your website.
Steph
Thanks again Stephanie 🙂
It is so true because where there is a demand for a product, then you will start to see some MLM companies taking advantage on such an opportunity. Just as long as the compensation plan is simple and the product is of high quality, then there is no problem.
Hello! Thanks for your perspective on Usborne books. It is funny I found your post as I am about to host an Usborne Facebook party. I have no desire to become a consultant, but I do think the company makes some neat interactive books that teach children parts of speech, discovery books you read with a flashlight, and plenty of sticker and activity books.
When you have young children, I can understand being drawn to the free books a parent receives as a consultant. Young children do not respond to .pdf versions of stories, but I think that is a good idea for older children, which Usborne does not currently target.
As you stated, there are better ways to make money online, and I agree that MLM businesses are not for most. I would not recommend an MLM business to a fellow mompreneur unless she really liked the company’s product. I think when you get into an MLM business, you have to enjoy and use the products you end up purchasing, which is a big drawback for those with limited budgets.
Your chart draws some very true comparisons between MLMs and affiliate marketing – it’s a great visual. What advice would you give affiliate marketers that are struggling to meet their financial goals? How long does it take to make a profit?
Hi Carmen
A good and useful product is one of the most important pillars in any mlm business. To have financial success with affiliate marketing takes time to accomplish but once your website has reached that milestone, it will keep making money for you.
The time it takes to make a profit is hard to say. Some people make their money back in 3 months while other in 6. It depends on how many articles you can get up in a short period of time and also the niche you are in. There are just so many factors that you need to consider.
Hi Viljoen.
In te past 10 years i was part of multiple MLM companies triyng to make a career but i always failed. Maybe i was week at selling dreams becouse in my opinion MLM companies sell 20% products and 80% dreams. So i came to a point where i believe that MLM as a business is a scam. I have different thoughts about their products though. Most of them have very good unique products that i still use. Now, as a fresh parent, i would use their products but not being part of their business plan.
Great review! Good job!
Zoly
Hi Zoly.
I agree that mlm is not for anyone and that most companies will try to hype up the opportunity. If the products are good, then there is no problem in buying them, but if you want to build a business around it, then it is another story.
I think the discount for moms signing up is worth while. There is no penalty for NOT selling. So in this case… if you use the product, why not?
(I’ve been browsing to find reasons not to join for the discount. Thus far, I have found none. I am not attempting to make a regular income).
That’s exactly why I signed up. I got a killer deal in the package I signed up for so Im only doing this for the books for my family – not to make a living!! 🙂
I can’t speak to how Usborne works out on the sales side, however, on the consumer side….HORRIBLE. I have been trying for 2 months to get books that I ordered through a rep that will not contact me back…Can’t seem to get resolution.
Hi Angela
Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Did you try to contact the company directly?
Don’t bother contacting the company… it’s virtually impossible. I’ve spent 6 hours on hold just trying to reach customer service by phone. I’ve emailed, and reached out to a rep that did manage to be the 1%… I got no responses. If you have a good rep, they’ll bird dog the issue for you, but they’re treated just like the ‘unimportant’ customers.
Have you received your books yet? I was an Usborne consultant for a few months (couldn’t deal with their poor customer service and slow shipping) but still have access to their system. If you’d like, I can contact CS for you if I have your order number.
Same problem for me too! This companies customer service is terrible. They never answer the phone or return phone messages. I have tried for 2 months to talk to anyone from this company. They were payed 2 months ago and I never got my books.
This company is HORRIBLE. We ordered 5 science encyclopedias for families for our homeschool program on August 10th. It is November 15th and our sweet representative has called and emailed every single week since August attempting to get them to send the books. They were out of stock, then in stock (but they didn’t send them to us!), then out of stock again. We waited SO long, that the person whose house they were supposed to go to sold her house and moved while we were still waiting. We updated the address (and our rep checked and changed it in FOUR places) but then, guess what? They sent it to the old address with the wrong name on it, so it didn’t get forwarded. Here we are over 3 months later and we still don’t have the books. Our rep waits on hold for over 2 hours every week waiting to get an update. No one returns emails (mine or hers). We have nothing. No books and we don’t have our money back. Do not EVER purchase or work for this company. It is the worst customer service I have ever encountered.
Hi Valie, I have read again for MLM products trying to find business opportunities. I did not know why some people make money with this type of business and some find it so hard. Well, you made it clear. Only 1% makes money. You have to be an expert or to be lucky finding a MLM program in a low competition niche.