For a long time the Direct Selling industry in India saw a great deal of good and bad times because of absence of any legitimate rules or guidelines. Nonetheless, taking a gander at the huge capability of the business, the Government of India set down explicit rules in September 2016 to streamline the systems just as help partners from any false practices.
Direct selling in India means selling products directly to end consumers away from retail locations whereby Independent representatives also known as independent business owners (IBO’s)/sales representatives/independent distributors market the company’s products in a number of ways like word of mouth selling, door to door selling, home gatherings etcetera. It is all about flexible and part time earnings.
Most direct sales firms are multilevel marketing companies, or MLMs. As in you are
compensated for your product sales as well as the sales of people recruited by you as well as
people recruited by them and so on and so forth. Apart from sales commission these sales
representatives also receive other bonuses and perks like all expense paid trips, special prizes,
free vouchers etcetera.
These days people sell everything from makeup to insurances making the direct selling industry
a 30 billion dollar industry. Basically anyone and everyone can join the industry with no startup
costs and no time constraints. Numerous people have benefitted from direct selling and received
good income and compensations, but most people do not have much success and are not suited
for it, why? That will be discussed further in this article.
Now the question arises, can one really make a living out of direct selling or is it merely to
generate an extra income? How much income does one make working for a legitimate direct
selling company?
These are the questions asked most frequently by people willing to join the industry but are
apprehensive at the same time.
Sadly, the figures are much lower than one would imagine, much lower than expected. Reason
being, most direct sellers only work part time, contributing a very minimal portion of their time
to their direct selling business. And this applies to 89% of direct sellers who work only part time
and spare even less than 10 hours a week.
Ideally women in their 50’s make the best direct selling representatives since they are educated, have fewer distractions and are willing to become active volunteers. They are the bosses of their own houses juggling tasks whilst playing successful entrepreneurs.
As for many other people, they only want to get involved in direct sales because they get a
chance to buy their favourite products at much discounted rates simultaneously receiving a little
extra allowance to fulfill their daily needs. However, most people do not even wish to sell
forward the products they have bought and keep them stocked for personal use, but this
decreases the average earnings. For those looking to earn a substantial income through direct
sales need to make consistent and sincere efforts.
There is no fixed formula that helps to determine how much work needs to be put in order to
generate a good enough income from direct selling. But one thing is for sure the amount of time
you invest in this business is directly proportional to the returns you receive. If you wish to
generate full time salary, you will need to work full time. Moreover, you need to be patient
enough to create and grow your consumer base.
