Stampin’ Up Review – Scam Or Legitimate MLM Business?
Welcome to my Stampin’ Up Review!
Stampin’ Up is a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company that celebrates people, relationships, and creativity by offering products that allow their Demonstrators to share their love with others.
In this Stampin’ Up Review, I will be examining this company, the products that they offer, and more importantly, the MLM Business opportunity that they offer as a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator.
This Stampin’ Up Review will be answering one important question: Does Stampin’ Up offer a legitimate MLM Business opportunity, or is this a scam or pyramid scheme? This is my unbiased Stampin’ Up Review.
Company Details & History
Founded in 1988 by two sisters, LaVonne Crosby and Shelli Gardner, Stampin’ Up offers a full line of decorative rubber stamps and accessories for any arts and crafts enthusiast.
Popular Products
The Stampin’ Up product line includes:
- Rubber Stamps
- Paper Products
- Embellishments
- Scrapbook Supplies
- Home Decor
- Storage Solutions
…and many more!
Available Markets
These products are offered exclusively through more than 40,000 Stampin’ Up Demonstrators throughout:
- United States
- Puerto Rico
- Canada
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Germany
- France
- United Kingdom
MLM Business – How their opportunity works
The cost to begin your business as a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator will be the price of a Starter Kit. There are two to choose from:
- Digital+ Starter Kit for $159.25
*Stampin’ Up is currently running a promotion in the month of May 2011, and offering this kit for $122.50.
- Standard Starter Kit for $175
Additional packages
You will also have the option to add scrap-booking and home decor to your business if you purchase an optional add-on. They offer their Stampin’ Memories add-on for $50, and their Definitely Decorative add-on for $40.
Compensation – Earning potential
As a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator, you will begin earning 20% for every product that you sell. As you increase your sales volumes, you will earn up to an additional 20% in Volume Rebates on sales of $400 and up. The following is a breakdown of your earning potential, and reflects your monthly personal sales volumes:
- For sales between $0 and $399.99, your total earnings will be 20%.
- For sales between $400 and $699.99, your total earnings will be 25%.
- For sales between $700 and $999.99, your total earnings will be 27%.
- For sales between $1,000 and $1,499.99, your total earnings will be 30%.
- For sales between $1,500 and $2,499.99, your total earnings will be 34%.
- For sales between $2,500 and $3,499.99, your total earnings will be 36%.
- For sales between $3,500 and $4,999.99, your total earnings will be 38%.
- For sales of $5,000 and more, your total earnings will be 40%.
As you begin your recruiting efforts, and personally sponsor new Stampin’ Up Demonstrators into your organization, you will earn downline overrides on the sales of your team members as well.
As your personal sales and the sales of your organization increase, you will begin to progress through the various Leadership Positions within the Stampin’ Up Compensation Plan, qualifying you to earn larger commissions on greater volumes and more Demonstrators in your downline.
Demonstrator Training & Support
This is a traditional Multi-Level Marketing company, so the methods of sharing products and prospecting among your friends, family members, acquaintances, neighbors, and co-workers will still apply.
You will be trained to participate in Home Parties, where you will showcase products, and present various ideas and techniques to generate sales. You will recruit those within your warm market who express an interest in joining your team as a Demonstrator themselves. These will be the methods of marketing and the business building tactics that you will learn as a new Demonstrator.
Stampin’ Up Review Conclusion
In my opinion after conducting this Stampin’ Up Review, this is a legitimate MLM Business opportunity, and is not a scam. For more than 20 years, Stampin’ Up has been offering high-quality arts and crafts products, and provided a social outlet, as well as the potential for a profitable home business while sharing crafting ideas with their loved ones.
If you possess an outgoing personality, and desire to build a business by sharing products with your loved ones in a Home Party setting, I believe that Stampin’ Up offers a solid business opportunity.
I hope that you have found my Stampin’ Up Review to be informative and educational! I wish you luck in your search for a Home Business!
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 Stampin’ Up Review for those who are researching the Stampin’ Up 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
I don’t think this is much of an in-depth review one way or the other because you are basically repeating what the company says about itself.
For instance, is it a social outlet only – or could it be that personal relationships are exploited in an effort to draw in recruits and keep them there buying the company’s products – who are their biggest customers – the recruits?
How much profit is made after factoring in the investment of marketing, and effort to recruit? How many make a real income in a year? And does recruiting more people in your area saturate the market so that the pie is smaller? Do recruits who joined the company a long time ago earn more in comparison to newer recruits – will the new recruits ever reach the same level ‘really’ – or is it just a big dream for a very few? Then I would think you might have a real sense of whether this is really a legit business in the end for a person’s investment.
Hi Freebeet,
Thank you for your comments. However, it is not my job to slam any company that I do a review for. I can get into trouble for that. I only attempt to provide the facts, and then let my readers decide for themselves. However, while your points are valid, success is always going to be a direct reflection of your personal efforts. Just because a person is signing up with a MLM company does not mean that they are destined to fail, but it does not guarantee success either. In other words, there is nothing wrong with Stampin’ Up, but not everyone is going to be successful. The same is true with anything in life.
My brothers ex wife was into this like a cult. Their house was a disaster becuase she had stampin up mechandise everywhere, it was shameful. She to my knowledge never made any $ amount that warrented the amount of time she put into it. Now, they are divorced, a family split apart because of it in my opinion.
Stampin Up isn’t a scam, it’s legititamate BUT you have to be realistic. Even if you’re really passionate, it doesn’t mean you’ll earn much. The only people really making a lot of money is Stampin Up, the company. You earn comission on sales and also when you recruit people and there’s free rubber stamps to be earned. Even if you don’t approach it as a business, you can still get a 20% discount which is all fine and well but their products are really expensive compared to other craft brands so is it really even a “saving??”. They are EXTREMELY strict with what you can and can’t do with everything. You can’t even blog about them if you’re using other brands. They seem friendly and down-to-earth and talk about being a community but it’s all very exclusive. Or should I say EXCLUDING. It’s like being in a cult where everything you do and say is monitored. They’re probably reading this, right now.
Maybe you can make a living out of it if you do it completely full time and be really strategic but otherwise, it’s just a way to earn a bit of extra cash here & there but it’s a waste of time if you ask me. The number of people signing up is growing and growing so it’s only going to become harder to make money out of it. Join if you like the products and want to buy them but think twice about seeing it as a business opportunity: you’ll only be frustrated and disappointed and after several years, wonder what on earth you’ve got to show for your life after wasting all your time on Stampin Up.
Thank you Mary for taking the time to share your thoughts and opinions of Stampin’ Up!
My sister has been a stampin up demonstrator for several years. My sister had one down-line (friend she recruited to be a demonstrator) for about a month and her recruit could not make the sales quota. She essentially was kicked out of Stampin Up. My sister has made minimal profit, even the little amount she made is due to one relative that supports her. I don’t consider this a real job, more of a hobby for her. She makes handmade cards to sell at events and makes card orders for friends as well but it isn’t all that lucrative either. I have used the Stampin Up products quite a bit and they are good quality but quite expensive. Not a pyramid scheme but definitely MLM.
It may be a legitimate company but it’s best to stay farrrr away! Trust me, I was a demo and I spent bucket loads of money and made NOTHING until I sold everything on Ebay, then I did a booming business! Why? Because SU jacks up their prices so badly and charges a huge shipping rate, demos do get 20 percent off what they buy BUT you pay so much in shipping it doesn’t matter. Like another poster said they are very much like a cult, their people are seriously loyal, like the kool aid drinkers in Jonestown. And they tattle on each other all the time which is nuts. You get flamed royally if you use other products, this even used to be against the rules but people complained so much they changed that rule. But that being said, if you are a demo you still can’t sell any of your projects at a craft show or on Etsy unless they are totally made with SU products and labeled as such. Trust me, there are dozens and dozens of better companies out there to spend your hard earned money with. Do not try to get into any kind of MLM business, you will only end up unhappy and broke!!
I was a demonstrator more than once. Unless you get online and do stamping full-time, there is no money to be made. The market is saturated with demonstrators, so it is hard to find anyone to be your down-line. You can ONLY use their products, which I could not do. There were so many new innovations and I love the craft. Stampin Up would come out with products behind the times.
My other problem with Stampin Up is once they retire something, demos can no longer use the products. My friend is a demo and every year she has to pull several dozen stamps sets, colors and paper because it is “retired”. She loses money every year. SU comes out with new stuff and then she has to buy that in order to have her card classes. I really want to know what percentage of SU’s total sales are from Demos? I bet it’s more than half. For that reason alone, I consider SU a scam. By having Demonstrators they are guaranteeing themselves income every year.