Melaleuca Review – Scam Or Legitimate MLM Business?
Welcome to my Melaleuca Review!
Melaleuca was founded with a mission to enhance the lives of everyone they touch by helping them reach their goals.
In this Melaleuca Review, I will be examining this company, and the products that they offer in relation to the MLM business opportunity that they provide as a Melaleuca Marketing Executive.
This Melaleuca Review will strive to answer one important question: Does Melaleuca offer a legitimate and promising MLM Business Opportunity, or should this be considered as a scam or pyramid scheme? This is my unbiased Melaleuca Review.
Company Details & History
Founded in the summer of 1985, and operating under the leadership of CEO Frank VanderSloot, Melaleuca is a Health & Wellness company that offers a tremendous line of more than 350 products related to:
- Vitamins & Supplements
- Food & Weight Loss
- Cleaning & Laundry
- Dental Care
- Bath & Body
- Beauty
- Candles & Air Fresheners
- Pet Care
Through the years, Melaleuca has experienced tremendous growth and success, and currently reports annual sales of more than $859 Million. Melaleuca sends out more than 220K checks each month to Marketing Executives across America and Canada.
Melaleuca Products are never sold on any department store shelves, as they are offered exclusively through Melaleuca Marketing Executives. This will now transition us into my review of the Melaleuca Home Business opportunity.
MLM Business – How it all works
You will find that when you are researching any aspect regarding the opportunity to become a Melaleuca Marketing Executive online, that the information is very limited.
Even when you visit the Melaleuca website to learn more, they will ask you to get back to the person who has introduced you to Melaleuca. If no one has introduced you, and you came across Melaleuca in an online search, you are provided with a 1-800 number to call when you click on the “Request More Information” button on the top right corner of their website.
Details behind joining and getting started…
However, I have called that number for you, and at the time of this writing, this is what I was able to find out from the gentleman that I spoke with:
The cost to join Melaleuca is a one-time $29 Membership Fee. Whether you are enrolling as a Melaleuca Preferred Customer, or a Marketing Executive, this fee will apply. This will provide you with your Membership Kit, which will include the business essentials to assist you in getting started. After paying this fee, you will be qualified to purchase products at wholesale prices, and to begin enrolling Preferred Customers and Marketing Executives into your organization to earn compensation on their sales volumes.
Back-Up-Order Requirement
Next, you will be enouraged to begin purchasing products on a monthly basis. Melaleuca offers a convenient Back-Up-Order, which will ship products of your choosing to you in the case where you forget to order your monthly products. A product purchase of approximately $60 per month will be required to maintain your Active status to earn compensation for your efforts.
Marketing Executive Training & Support
Melaleuca firmly believes in the traditional methods of Network Marketing, and the concepts of Word-of-Mouth. These methods are what I like to refer to as Warm Marketing. You will be trained and encouraged to share products with your friends, family members, acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, etc. You will recruit those within your Warm Market who express an interest in the opportunity to become a Marketing Executive in your Melaleuca Organization.
The products that Melaleuca offers are ones that average families already purchase and require on a daily basis. Your mission will be to convince your loved ones to purchase higher quality products at a lower cost through your Melaleuca business. As a brand new Marketing Executive, this will be the basis of your training.
Melaleuca Review Conclusion
In my opinion, Melaleuca is definitely a legitimate business opportunity, and is not a scam. This company has been offering high-quality products and growing at staggering rates for more than 25 years. With the fact that they offer more than 350 products, their Marketing Executives will never have a shortage of products to promote and distribute.
If you possess the desire to share the benefits of Melaleuca with your loved ones, you can achieve success within your Melaleuca Business.
However, if you possess the ability to market their products and business opportunity in a manner that is not reliant upon your friends and family members, this will dramatically increase your chances of success.
All in all, Melaleuca is a very solid business opportunity with proven leadership, and fantastic Health & Wellness products to build a business around.
This concludes my Melaleuca Review! If you have found this Melaleuca Review to be helpful, or if you just have something to add, please provide your feedback below!
Category: MLM Company Reviews
About the Author (Author Profile)
Dave Fennell is the founder and editor of Marketing Methods Online and BloggerGo. Learn more about him here. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.Subscribe
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Dave Fennell wrote this Melaleuca Review for those who are researching the Melaleuca Business Opportunity. I would love your feedback. If you have any experiences with this company, whether good or bad, please share them here to assist others in their research efforts.
I greatly appreciate your feedback and expertise, and others will too!
To Your Success,
Dave Fennell
Hello Dave, I want to personally thank you for your very accurate and unbiased review of Melaleuca:the Wellness Company. I have been an independent marketing executive with this awesome company for 17 years and I can tell you in all honesty there is no other company that offers an opportunity like this. I know this because in 25 years I have investigated over 100 MLM companies myself! I would however like to vehimantly point out to you so that you can make the adjustment in the future should you be asked to review Melaleuca again or are asked by anyone of your friends, family or peers about Melaleuca. MELALEUCA IS NOT AN MLM COMPANY! Melaleucas’ business model is actually in a category all unto itself as there is no other company that currently does business this way. Melaleucas’ model is CONSUMER DIRECT MARKETING! it is trademarked to them and they invented it 27 years ago and as i said there is currently no other company that does business this way. So please refrain from refering to them as MLM, they are not and they have spent much time, money and effort to completely distance themselve from that very destructive and totally broken business model that is MLM! I myself would have never taken Melaleuca seriously as a business for myself if they were an MLM. Thank you.
Hello John,
Thank you for your comment and for sharing. Please read my comment below regarding the definition of MLM and Direct Sales.
Thank you,
Dave
Saved as a favorite, I enjoy your blog! 🙂
I have been a Melaleuca Marketing Executive and Customer for just over two years and I felt that I should help clarify a few point on your research.
Like most people you have tossed Melaleuca into the “MLM bucket” and we clearly don’t belong there. As you said you are “examining this company, and the products that they offer in relation to the MLM business opportunity that they provide as a Melaleuca Marketing Executive.” If you understood how Melaleuca operates, as a Consumer Direct Marketing company, then you would not have misled your readers.
A few errors in your overview are:
“Melaleuca Products are never sold on any department store shelves, as they are offered exclusively through Melaleuca Marketing Executives (Distributors).” Not true, we are NOT Distributors, I’ve been a Melaleuca Marketing Executive for just over two years and I’ve NEVER sold a single product. During that time I’ve received a steady, reliable, residual income. I do not buy and sell products and never will. I do not take orders or make deliveries. I do not bill or collect money. I don’t distribute anything. Ever single customer that I’ve referred to Melaleuca purchases their products direct from the Melaleuca factory and they pay the exact same price that I pay for my products.
“The cost to join Melaleuca is a $29 Membership Fee.” This is true and I think it worth mentioning that it is a “one time fee” and not annual. Also the Marketing Executive gets no part of that fee as they would in most MLM businesses. If this were a Recruiter based MLM business then we’d typically pay a much higher membership and we’d also get a chunk of that sign-up fee.
“Next, you will need to decide which products to purchase on their monthly Autoship Program. This program will automatically ship these products to your home every month, and will bill your credit card accordingly.“ You are again thinking about a typical MLM company and this statement is absolutely false. There is no “Autoship Program” with Melaleuca, I’ve been shopping at Melaleuca for over 2 years and each month I simply order a few of the products that I use for my personal consumption. They do have a very convenient “Back-up Order” that sits on file and only ever gets shipped if I forget to order my monthly product. I’ve never received a Back-up Order because there are so many great products that I need each month. If I ever forget to then Melaleuca will ship me my Supplements, which I’d never what to be without.
Your section on “how are Marketing Executives trained to build their Melaleuca business” is somewhat accurate. If you like more clarity then you can contact me anytime. Bob Munro bobmunro888@gmail.com
Hi Bob,
Thank you for your feedback.
MLM is defined as:
Multi-level Marketing (MLM), (also called Network Marketing, Direct Selling, Referral Marketing, and Pyramid Selling) is a term that describes a marketing structure used by some companies as part of their overall marketing strategy.
I will take this a step further:
Anytime a company offers commissions and bonuses based upon not only personal production, but the production of personally enrolled Marketing Executives or Distributors going down several generations, this is a MLM Business model.
Now, I never said that MLM is a bad thing.
While I don’t agree with the business building practices that most MLM companies encourage, I believe that MLM is one of the strongest Home Based Business models out there. But only if you know how or are taught to effectively market it.
A Back-Up Order is still similar to an Autoship. The Back-Up Order is not being initiated in your case because you are meeting the purchase requirements by ordering your supplements every month. In the case where you forget to order products, the Back-Up Order will automatically kick in and process your order.
However, I have made the change in my review to reflect the Back-Up Order more accurately.
I have gone ahead and removed the word Distributor from my Review. I have also notated that the Membership Fee is a one-time charge.
Again, thank you for your feedback, and let me know if you have any more questions or concerns.
I always strive to provide quality and accurate information in my reviews, so I deeply appreciate your help.
To Your Success!
Dave Fennell
This is one of the most accurate reviews of Melaleuca. I know a few people in the company, and they are the most financially secured people I know. The products are very healthy and natural compared to leading brands, which creates a positive impact on the health of humans and the environment. Overall, Melaleuca is an awesome company, with positive ethics and surefire success.
Thank you Warren!
I would like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in writing this website. I am hoping the same high-grade site post from you in the upcoming as well. Actually your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings fast. Your write up is a great example of it.
Dave, there has been a bit of a boom in network marketing to use public utilities recently as the product represented. I am involved in Ambit Energy but have taken a look at how much they charge to start-up in their business model ($429 one time fee and $24.95/month for websites and support) and realize after reviewing another company that they are just pushing that start up money around to leadership and most people never see their money back.
I say this because none of my sponsored folks made back all of their investment like I did…which can leave a person feeling pretty bad and give a negative name for the company when they start complaining. I blame it a bit on myself for not being on top of them to utilize “the systems in place to succeed”, but you can only help so much in this industry…not everyone is going to be a salesperson.
I have recently found a program that is trying to take away the negativity created by such models…where there is a No Risk, No Investment model that has got me pretty excited about it and wonder why other businesses do not use the same. If you would like to review this company, I would like to know what you think. The only down side for them is that you have to be in one of the markets to make it completely free (NY, CT, NJ, MD, PA, and soon IL)…others can join in support of “Green Energy”, which makes a great cause vs. just overpaying for products that you can already buy for less money in your local stores.
Oh yeah, they are making a philanthropic move to donate money to charity every month that you pay your bill with them as well…
Looking forward to a review.
Thanks,
Bob Connell
US Army
Watertown, NY
Hi Bob,
First off, thank you for your service. I was in the Navy myself, so I appreciate your sacrifices!
I was a little confused concerning the company that you would like me to review. Were you referring to Ambit Energy? If so, I have already conducted a review on Ambit, and you can find my review just by typing Ambit Energy in the search field on the top right hand corner of my website!
If you would like me to review another opportunity that you are referring to, just let me know the company name, and I will do my best.
Best of luck in your ventures!
Thank you,
Dave Fennell
My family & I started with Melaleuca a year ago when my then three year old then began to show severe sensitivities to well, pretty much everything. Soap, laundry detergent, cleaning chemicals…we needed another option. A woman from church came over and gave her presentation. She presented both the buying and the business opportunity. We bought the home conversion kit and LOVED the products! Within a few weeks, my daughter was feeling better, breathing better. The cleaning and laundry products are my favorite. That all said, what I don’t care for is that you have to buy a certain amount every month to remain “active”. If you miss placing a monthly order, they charge your card with a “back-up” order. (we always use pre-paid cards when dealing with ordering anything from the web.) The other thing I don’t like is the lady calls me frequently and pressures me into having some friends over and present the opportunity to them. Mind you, we are CUSTOMERS only. We are happy just buying…which she makes a commission from. I don’t want to have a party and I don’t want to be part of the “business opportunity”. I love my job, have a decent salary, and have NO extra time or energy for that aspect of the company. We’ll keep buying, but the business end of it needs to back off.
Patrice
Thank you Patrice!
I’ve been coming here for a roughly a week now and have decided to make my first post to say thank you.
Hi Dave!
I am a fairly new marketing executive with Melaleuca (joined a couple months ago), and I have to say that I have been extremely frustrated with the lack of unbiased information regarding the company that I can find on the Internet. I guess that’s the inherent problem with the Internet – you can literally find anything on it, never mind if it’s true or factual. I happen to love the company, the ideals set forth by the CEO and other management, and the products that I have tried so far have all been top notch. Everything that I was told in my presentation has been 100% true. However, I see by looking around online that this is not always the case, I guess because some people misrepresent the company when they are presenting the products or the business model.
Having said that, I really appreciate the time that you took to get the facts right! And to go back and correct yourself made your credibility even better. Thank you so much for providing accurate information to those who may be thinking about joining and are looking around to see if it is a “scam” or not.
Kelly
p.s. Patrice, so sorry that your enroller is behaving this way! If you have chosen to be a customer only then she should only be calling to see if you like your products or have any questions.
Hi Kelly,
Thank you so much! This is a great compliment. Thank you for coming by and commenting. I wish you success in your Melaleuca business!
Dave F
Hi Dave,
I have been a Melaleuca customer for over 20 years. Actually, my parents starting using the products while I was in high school almost 24 yrs. ago. Over the years I have helped some of my friends get their own accounts so they can have these great products in their home as well, but otherwise have been just a very loyal product user. I love Melaleuca and will be a customer for life. Thank you for your review. I agree with the others that it is one of the most accurate I’ve seen and I also agree that the fact that you went in to your review and corrected some things when they were brought to your attention is impressive. Thank you again. I hope people thinking about being a part of this great company will read your review and make a decision to try it for themselves.
Hi Jennifer,
Thank you so much for your comment on my Melaleuca Review, and more importantly, your compliment! This means a lot to me! Please come back and visit anytime!
Have a great rest of your day!
Dave F.
Thanks Dave for your review. Reading this just helped me make my decision to give the Melaleuca Business a try. I have been trying to decide for sure and wanted to make sure it is not a scam. I have already bought my first month of products (which I am pleased with) and have talked to an enroller, but was apprehensive about moving forward. You made me feel much better about it as well as seeing the positive comments from other people involved with Melaleuca.
Hi Beth,
I am glad that you found my Melaleuca Review to be helpful. I wish you luck in your new business venture. Get in there, and work hard, and I am sure that you will do great.
Best of luck!
Dave F.
What I do not like about Melaleuca is their deceptive marketing practices. They always go under a third party name as if they are hiding the name of their company for one reason or another. I once fell pray to their marketing/sales practices, and during the webinar, never felt SO pressured as I was to buy their products.
If they are so good, then why do they feel the need to recruit under AWU or other company websites?
Thanks.
While the review is pretty good, the MLM part is not correct. I have been a marketing executive with Melaleuca for going on 5 years. They invented Consumer Direct Marketing and have trademarked the term! We are Not Distributors! We are Customers! Customers that shop at wholesale! Some customers introduce others to shop also. Most customers just shop(about 75%) other customers like me(about 25%) share the Company and Products with others, and help them set up their own Direct Shopping Account. ONLY
on the Compensation side is there a multi-generation payout – NOT on the marketing side. Melaleuca does not have Distributors, No Break aways, No Inventory, No deliveries, No selling products, and No Risk! The 29.00 membership fee is refundable for 4 months to anyone who changes their mind or not happy in any way! That is why we publish a 93 – 96% mo0nthly reorder rate for now over 26 years!!
Hey there! I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Humble Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the fantastic job!
Good article. Keep it up.