Hello everyone, David Nelly here from Safe Money Makers, and today we are going to be taking a look at Stampin Up. This Stampin up review is going to mainly focus on the opportunity to make money that the company offers, but as always, when it comes to Multilevel Marketing companies, the quality of the products has a large effect on the probability of making the sale of the product, so we will also be providing a mini-review into the companies products to provide some context on your probability of success as a demonstrator.
The premise of the product:
- Name: Stampin Up
- Website: https://www.stampinup.com
- Owners: Shelli Gardner. In 2016 her daughter Sara Douglass took over the company as the CEO
- Founding History: Stampin up was founded in 1988
- Products Rating: 3.5/5
- Demonstrator Opportunity Rating: 2/5
- Overall Rating: 2.75/5
- Summary: MLM company that designs arts and crafts materials.
- Is it a scam or is it legit: It’s legit
- Who it’s for: Craft lovers, people who love working with other people.
What is Stampin Up?
Stampin Up is a direct selling MLM company that sells stamps and other types of crafts. They sell a lot of products that cater to the decor niche, such as paper for packaging, cards, and envelopes. They also sell adhesives, ink, and a large array of products dedicated to helping you create that ultimate thank you card, or happy birthday card, happy anniversary card, valentines day, Christmas, New Year, …the ultimate gift of love that you want to send out to that special person!
You can view all of Stampin up’s catalog of products here.
Stampin Up History:
Stampin up was founded in 1988 by two sisters. These sisters’ names were Shelli Gardner and Lavonne Crosby. Over time the company has spread its wings and accumulated territory in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, and the United Kingdom.
In the beginning, however, things were like a business stress horror story.
To start the companies business model, The sisters attempted to implement the direct selling model employed by companies like Mary Kay. They employed some other women to be demonstrators for their products, but things did not go well. Two years into this process, they had to consider the option of filing for bankruptcy. Their determination, however, allowed them to press on.
This resulted in the money getting into their pockets and it got to the point where the customer base started requesting custom products which resulted in the sisters hiring an illustrator in 1992.
More time passes, the sisters open up a Manufacturing facility for their business in Kanab Utah, and in 1997, this facility employed 40 people.
In 1998 Lavonne Crosby retired from Stampin up to focus on being a mother.
The rest is history, in 1999, Stampin Up’s line of products sold so well that they disregarded business with other vendors and started selling solely Stampin Up branded products.
Today they have various factories and Demonstrators all across the world.
A pretty cool story if I am being completely honest. Starting a company within a niche you find happiness and joy in, risking potential bankruptcy, and then turning it all around and transforming that scary situation into a $220 million dollar business.
In 2016 Shelli Gardner’s daughter Sara Douglass took over as Ceo of the company.
Stampin Up Product Reviews:
The public perception is highly positive on pretty much all Stampin up products.
In fact, Stampin Up products have been in the good graces of public opinion for decades now! There’s only one real issue that I have with this company, and it’s a BIG ONE!
To purchase these products, you have to buy from a demonstrator.
Now, all demonstrators are different right? Some demonstrators can be the nicest people in the entire world. However, some demonstrators can be full of toxic traits in which they constantly heckle you forever and ever by trying to convert you into a demonstrator yourself.
Maybe I don’t want to start holding parties where I try to show off my Stampin skills and attempt to persuade my friends and family into a business opportunity, maybe I just want to buy some cool ink to help my significant other out with her DIY crafting hobby.
So to take away that simplistic way of purchasing a product without having to communicate with other parties is a huge disadvantage in my book.
This alone creates a terrible user experience, and E-commerce stores like Amazon, Walmart, and Target online will forever beat Stampin up when it comes to user experience.
Just because I want to buy some Stampin-up products does not mean I want to be some social butterfly and risk some MLM hun trying to heckle me into their business opportunity.
Because if you know anything about MLMs and if you’ve ever gone out of your way to read FTC data articles on the MLM business, you’ll know that 99.6% of participants of MLM structures lose money!
So I think you can understand my negative view that just developed for this company, they have a strategy in place that is geared towards turning customers into Stampin Up demonstrators.
And that alluring thought will constantly be there for the customers, they will always have to go through a demonstrator to purchase the products that they want, and it’s possible that every time they purchase, the demonstrator would ask them if they are interested in becoming a demonstrator.
Not to mention that the demonstrator that the customer orders from will have the contact details of the customer.
Leaving the demonstrator with 24/7 access to the customer, at any time of the day, the demonstrator can attempt to rope the customer into the demonstrator program.
The last thing I want to happen to me or to a loved one is to see them roped into a business model where they have only a 0.4% chance of turning a profit.
Products Conclusion:
Stampin up offers some of the highest respected quality DIY crafting products across the world in my opinion, but they are heavily promoted to get people to become demonstrators.
In my view, this is disrespectful to the core audience. Most people who are into do-it-yourself arts and crafts are into this subject of art as a hobby, they don’t really want to start a business and be talked into buying a $99 starter pack and try to sell those products full price. They just want some new stamps to decorate some new cards.
While I would give the products a 4/5, this barrier of entry to attain the products brings the score down to a 3.5/5.
Demonstrators Opportunity Review, Consider the facts before you join:
How to join and the cost involved: When it comes to becoming a demonstrator, you are going to have to pay for a product package. There’s a catch 22 pro and con to this, the pro, you get a discount, the con, you have to pay the $99 fee to get started.
So if you want to make money with this company, you will be forced to make a commitment.
However, one thing that puts this MLM a step above the others in terms of making sure you don’t go bankrupt, once you have the $99 demonstration package, you don’t have to re-purchase products.
This brings your risk outlook way down to that of a commission-only-based sales job!
You don’t have to continuously buy new products every month like you would with an MLM like Truvy, or Plexus Worldwide!
They do however have a commission volume structure. The more products you sell, the more your rank increases, the more your rank increases, the more your commission rate percentage increases.
Also, if you aren’t going to promote Stampin up products via a website or YouTube channel, you are going to have to consider all of the traveling costs, equipment costs, and how much you’ll be working with people to do your Stampin up demos.
How to earn as a Stampin Up Demonstrator:
The MLM program follows the same kinds of rules that all the other MLMs follow. You got your downline, demonstrators that sign up under your promotion, anything that they earn, you can earn between 1-5% commission based on their sales.
In addition, as mentioned before, you make a commission based on your direct sales, the more you sell, the higher the commission cap increases in terms of percentage.
How much do Stampin Up Demonstrators earn?
While you might find on indeed.com that demonstrators earn up to $13 per hour, that is simply a suggestive outlet as there is no true way to calculate what these folks make purely based on commission.
I will say that since Stampin Up has higher quality products that have a lot of public praise, and in addition, the cost of entry is way lower compared to your typical MLM structure, you don’t have to continuously pay for a personal volume.
While the FTC states that you have a 0.4% chance to turn a profit in the typical MLM network since there is no cost to keep your business afloat, your chances of earning may be significantly higher.
Why are Demonstrators leaving Stampin Up?
While you have been researching Stampin Up, you may have noticed that multiple demonstrators are constantly leaving this company, what is so controversial that is causing these demonstrators to leave?
Ultimately, most demonstrators have complained about how time-consuming it is for how little return on investment you get back.
Doing all of the Stampin demos, showing off the materials, creating gathering, it’s all a lot of work, and also quite a hard sell.
Basically, it’s a lot of work, and dealing with the selling aspect of it causes a lot of stress, especially when you are a YouTuber and you have to promote all the new products coming out and they all end up being duds that you don’t believe in.
It’s hard to stand by only one network and try to make every single new product be the best thing since sliced bread.
My issue with the Demonstration program: it’s not what’s best for customer service!
People leave MLM programs left and right, and for good reason, the FTC statistics based on MLM structures dictate that you have less of a chance of earning a profit in an MLM than gambling!
In an MLM structure, typically your chances of actually making a profit are less than 1%.
Source: FTC MLM success overview
More and more people are finding out about the huge failure rates in the Multi-Level Marketing world, either by articles online by trusted sources of information or simply by experiencing it first hand.
This ripple effect also goes into the Stampin Up Demonstrator world.
And what happens when a Stampin Up demonstrator quits?
The customer loses their source of interaction with Stampin up.
You’ll see that in the complaints for Better Business Bureau Stampin up page!
This crappy customer service is why industry giants like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and others continue to rule the world.
They have a customer service approach to the industry
They make it easy to purchase things.
Who hates long phone calls that go nowhere, and even worse, when you finally get ahold of someone and you can’t even understand what the heck they are even saying?
I know I do!
That’s also why I always recommend for people to do affiliate marketing over MLM network marketing!
It’s because when people want to buy a product, they are in buying mode, they just want to buy!
Not wait on the phone listening to static low quality music!
Stampin Up Review Conclusion:
I do feel that Stampin Up has a high-quality catalog of products, and for those looking to jump into the business, I believe that you can find a lot of success within this network marketing opportunity if you can successfully locate that niche audience of Craft lovers!
But the problem is that the only way to purchase products is through a Stampin up demonstrator, this falls under a customer service issue.
If your personal demonstrator decides to quit the company, or they are just really bad at their job, you are going to struggle with purchasing the products you wish to use.
In addition, your success rate of making a profit as a demonstrator is 0.4%.
Pros:
-High-quality products that have been well respected for over 30 years
-Stampin Up has been a successful business since the 1980s
-More of a merciful approach to Network Marketing, you just have to buy a demonstration kit and then your set, you can choose to promote your Stampin Up business any way you want, whether its through content marketing with a blog, holding demonstration parties, or direct selling to friends and family
Cons:
-Because of the demonstrator model where the only way you can purchase Stampin up products is through a demonstrator, they lack a customer service department, and your ability to purchase the Stampin up products is relegated through the relationship and communication abilities of the customer’s demonstrator.
This means that the customer service factor of Stampin up is based on people who choose to do Stampin up as a hobby.
This creates high stress and hard to navigate environment for both the Stampin up demonstrator and the Stampin up customer.
One party might want to purchase a product at 3 pm, the customer, while the other party might not be able to take calls/inquiries, the demonstrator because the demonstrator might be working at their real job.
Hence why you can’t really be a part-time demonstrator if you are taking this opportunity seriously, if you don’t make yourself available 24/7 to your clients, it’s just going to cause a lot of anger and frustration, and consumers are just going to buy stamps from Etsy and Amazon, where they don’t have to deal with a third party network business demonstrator.
If you are looking for something that you can experiment with without the fear of massive outrage from clients due to your inability to constantly be available, I highly recommend you check out my post on how affiliate marketing works!
Stampin up official rating from Safe Money Makers:
2.75/5
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Stampin Up Products Rating
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Overall Rating
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Stampin Up Demonstrator opportunity rating
We hope that you found this Stampin Up review informative, if you have any questions, do feel free to leave them down in the comments below.
-David Nelly
David Nelly's goal is to set you up with the right pathway to entering the world of making money online!
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We like crafts and art, the MLM company that you have discussed the pros and cons of the stampin up demonstrator. They do make good money and with all the scams going on, we are glad that this company is legit. Very informative article of stampin up demonstrator.
Cheers,
Mnd
Glad you guys found it informative :), and as always, I appreciate when you guys come by to see what I have to write!