Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/23/clothes-company-accused-of-bei.html
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Accused? They’re an MLM. They destroy lives. And in a pyramidal fashion.
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These pants have started showing up in the thrift. Never seen anybody buy them there.
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I’m at work and can’t watch the Vice video. What is the tldr; version? Is their sales model like Cutco/Avon/etc? The only people buying the merch are people hoping to sell it by throwing parties. But those people find they can only fill a room of friends and family once at most and so are left with piles of prepurchased merch they can’t sell?
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Close enough, except that the real payoff is supposed to be from recruiting others to do the selling but of course that only works if they also recruit etc.
Oh, and LuLaRoe seems to have come up with some additional wrinkles of wrongness. The video is long but impressive.
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Oh gotcha. Something something as soon as you have multiple tiers of people below you selling then you will be a millionaire, BS.
I will give it a watch tonight
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The material really looks intentionally hideous. Why would anyone make such wretched designs on purpose. Junk made for the purpose of being junk. I really don’t understand how anyone could hope to sell such godawful crap.
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Simple designs that can be mocked up in a software program, and changed with a couple of clicks. Low labor-invested design.
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See also: fast fashion. The design looks “cute” once, maybe twice, and coincidentally (/s) that’s pretty much how many times you can wear it before it falls apart and you go buy another cheap-thrills piece-of-the-week.
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If you are into the schadenfreude of things like Theranos, Amway, FLDS, Juicero, Scientology and other weird cult like things, this is a rabbit hole you are going to want to explore. The explosion has already started in real-time but but it’s happening slowly. So there is still time to watch the entire thing collapse. It’s got all the great hallmarks of a good corporate/cult/MLM shitshow, Mormon ties to the modesty movement, owners who are totally grifting for a lavish lifestyle, evidence that all the spin off companies are all family, stolen artwork, weird shit with their “designer” throwing them under the bus, rumored destruction of $11 million of LuLaRoe clothing and a whole bunch of other weird shit. The black clothing chapter is a really special bit of bullshit.
Seriously, this is the suburban soccer mom version of Theranos, I don’t know why there isn’t more media coverage of this crazy bullshit.
Edit - just finished the Vice doc, I didn’t know anything about the gastric bypass surgery craziness
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That’s an important distinction. MLMs get away with what they are because they base the bonus off of what someone sells or what the people under them sell. That’s basically what commission is, and the MLM way of doing it is ,unfortunately, totally legal. What this company did wrong, that’s in line with a pyramid scheme, is base the bonus off of what the sellers bought in inventory. It’s sad when the lady says how they changed to the conventional MLM bonus structure (because they realized the FTC was going to come down on them) in 2017 and (of course) her bonus checks go way down. The company didn’t have to sell a good product, they just needed to get people hooked on buying inventory. I’m actually surprised they got away with it for that long.
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So, even at the highest level, as soon as recruiting tapers off, the system breaks. Everyone in the system is already saturated with inventory (that they never sell). The only people purchasing the product are the employees. No commissions, so no income.
And isn’t it already a danger sign that “LuLaRoe” is an obvious attempt to piggyback on LuLuLemon? The company itself laughably claims that the name "was derived by combining the names of Brady's first three granddaughters; Lucy, Lola, and Monroe."
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As I understand it from looking at those pants is they buy used items of clothing from down on their luck clowns and then sell them to people who think clown stuff is still cool at inflated prices.
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Sometimes they buy used items of clothing from clowns who just won the lottery, to equally good effect.
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I know people who sold, bought, and recruited for this company. They would have Facebook Live videos QVC style every week. Some people quit their jobs along with their spouses to do this and it worked great…if you were on the top.
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Of course it was a pyramid scheme, look at the clothes racks they were using…
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A week or so ago I learned that the same business model is being used to sell dildos.
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Which brand, if I may ask?
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Bedroom Kandi. I saw it on the back of a car and couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a joke or not.
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