scam or not, that is the question. Market America

some background from their web site, Market America was founded in 1992. They are based out of Greensboro North Carolina. Market America is a product brokerage company that specializes in Internet marketing and more specifically, one to one marketing. Essentially their distributors earn commissions by getting their customers to shop through their websites. They have over 180,000 distributors worldwide in the US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The more than 3 million preferred customers have generated over $3 billion in revenue since they started 17 years ago.

Basically, a distributor is able to sell products wholesale and also make commissions when their customers shop on their Web portals. This is called the Mall Without Walls. Corporate sees this industry booming as more people tend to shop online these days. When distributors sign up, they are given a Unfranchise business. I believe they call it this because you appear to be getting the benefits of a franchise without it being a franchise. Okay, so now that we have pointed out the products and services that MarketAmerica provides we found that there is no Market America pryamid scheme, and certainly no Market America scam.

I had a difficult time learning about Market America’s compensation plan. Their official website discloses that is a Binomial Market System with a Management Performance Compensation Plan.This sounds confusing to me, but from what I understand distributors get paid when they sell product, when they recruit new distributors, and when customers use their web portal to purchase products online. I prefer that the company list exactly how they pay their distributors. I tend to think that if they don’t list it, it’s probably not very good.

Let's put some numbers into this...
You need to keep your right and left sides balanced in order reach the optimum payout each week; thus you need to generate 1200 points on both the right and left sides of your first level. For the second level you need 2400 points and 3600 points on the third level. Each level will generate $300. However, for your fourth level, you need to generate 5000 points on both sides equaling $600. Therefore you will have three levels earning $300 each and one level earning $600 for a total payout of $1500 per cycle; whereas each week is a new cycle and resetting back to 0. The simplest way to keep your residual income is to balance 50 enrollees on both side totaling 100 people in your business model. Each enrollee needs to make at least 100 points; when translated your total revenue is $12,000 and a weekly payout of $1500.

Market America’s main product line is Isotonix. These are vitamins, which as I’ve discussed in the past, are great products to market because they are consumable and people will need to purchase them again and again. Of course, there are limitless products since you can shop for everything from groceries to appliances through the Web portal. this is another reason why I have never personally joined Market America. There too many products for me to keep track of. I actually have a family member currently involved with Market America, and while she likes the products, she is not making the income in her Market America MLM business that I think she had hoped for.

The company does offer annual meetings and training opportunities as well as a complete web portal available when you sign up as a distributor. From what I could see they do offer a system they consider to be duplicatible. Again, I think this is dependent upon the individual and whether or not they really try to have success in their business.

So what’s next? Are you going to join Market America? Whether you decide to or not, you want to be one of the people that has major success. How are you going to do this? Are you going to be like my family member and try to get other family members to join you? How about talking to people that “get” network marketing? How about using a system? How about branding yourslef so that they want to join YOU in YOUR business, and not just start a Market America Business.

Make a world a better place [microloan / micocredit / microfinance]

I started doing this back in 2005, start with just $50 I have in my PayPal account. Use kiva.org which featured in PBS show Frontline you can read the article here.

kiva is great, people from 3rd world county would post their business plan and the amount they are asking for. There is a screening process done by partners, the borrower usually ask for few hundred dollars, so you and other "investor" would pool the money and loan the money. You can see the money getting repaid (an email alert is sent)! BTW, this is NOT FOR PROFIT so your'll get the $50 back not a penny more ( you could loss money but it hasn't happen to me yet) the low interest that was paid goes toward the kiva and partners that help supporting microloan.

Why doesn't these people go to the bank you ask? Well, if you have gone to your local FDIC insurance bank you'll realize the interest rate is very high... and most of the 3rd world country entrepreneur does not qualify. hence the mico-loan.

If I can help someone's life just a little better cross the world $50 is a small price.




Update:
Q: Is the loss of loan tax deductible?
A: No it's not. Only if you donate to kiva than it's tax-deductible

kiva.org's site answer alot of question and the community is very friendly feel free to post your question there. More video can you found on http://www.youtube.com/user/kivamicrofunds