Becoming an Avon ambassadrice in Mauritius

Unfortunately in Mauritius there are not many part time jobs or flexible jobs and if you manage to get one, you are one of the lucky few. Many countries around the world have many opportunities to work part time but in Mauritius, I haven’t yet come across any.

Avon is an established cosmetics company that has branched into jewellery, lingerie and toiletries; you can buy pretty much anything from the health and beauty category of Avon. In the UK however, Avon is affordable and you can get the basics for under £25; foundation, eyeliner, moisturiser, blusher, eye shadow and mascara. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said for Mauritius - a small bottle of foundation alone will set you back £20!

Yes Avon in Mauritius is ridiculously overpriced! A bottle of nail polish costs an astonishing £10 when in the UK it’s usually 2 for £5, perfume is £15 in the UK but is sold twice as much in Mauritius. It’s very easy to spend Rs5000 on just the basic make up items from Avon when you live in Mauritius. Considering most people’s wages here, cosmetics are very inflated.

Start up fees

If you decide to become an Avon Ambassadrice, you will need to pay Rs500 upfront. You will then get a small Avon pouch with a few lipstick and perfumes samples to help you get started, plus five brochures. For starting up, this is pretty much it, but you need to be aware that you need to be an active representative. If you are inactive for 3 consecutive months then you will lose your ‘membership’ and will have to re-apply and pay the Rs500 joining fee again.

Costs

Now when I spoke to them, all they said was you need to pay Rs500 and you will be up and running. After I paid, I found out about other costs and the things they don’t tell you. * You need to buy the brochures, they are not free but what they don’t tell you is that you need to have spent at least Rs1000 in the last campaign to get it cheaper. It costs Rs150 for 5 brochures but you get one free, but if you are not active one month then you will need to pay the full Rs 300 for a set of 5 brochures the following month.

• For your very first order, you need to spend at least Rs1000 to be able to get the 25% commission, all orders following the first needs to be at least Rs 800.
• You only get 25% commission on cosmetics and 15% on accessories; if the order is more that Rs6500, you will get 26% commission on cosmetics.
• Home delivery is available BUT the order has to be a minimum of Rs2000 even then it is only available the first week of the campaign and the third, plus you need to call to tell them you want it delivered. And by home delivery, I mean the goods are delivered to the ambassadress address and not the the clients!

You see all of the above was not mentioned when I agreed to becoming an "ambassadrice". There are guidelines that are emailed to all representatives for every campaign and I found out then that there were a load of stupid setbacks and costs involved.

Delivering the products to my home was one of the reasons I signed up as it is a little hard for me to get into Port-Louis (where their head office is located) due to other commitments but at the last minute I was told 'you need to call up beforehand' blah blah blah.

When you get Avon orders

You need to have at least Rs1,500 worth of products to send in an order request by fax or internet. If it is less, then you need to go to the distribution office in Port Louis or Curepipe and sit and wait. I went to the Port Louis office to pick up my order but it wasn’t ready! What’s the point in sending in your order beforehand when you don’t even get it when you are supposed to?

I also found that products are often sold out so when you have an order at the last minute before the campaign is finishing you may find that all your products are not available.

There are no terms and conditions to read or anything to sign before opting in as an Ambassadress, so other than the questions I remembered to ask they don’t tell you everything. I truly believe that I was misinformed as they don’t tell you everything plus you need to sell Rs20,000 worth of Avon to get your pathetic Rs5,000 commission. You need to factor in time spent and travelling into your profit as you may find that you are spending more time on filling out order forms and going back and forth collecting money, picking up orders, then distributing the orders to your clients.

So is it worth it?