

In its heyday, FarmVille farmers outnumbered real farmers 60 to 1. In the past few months, I’ve received more Jamberry nail party invites on Facebook than FarmVille invites in 2010. In a word, this epidemic is ridiculous.

And, quite frankly, it’s much sadder than plowing fake crops and building imaginary barns because Jamberry “consultants” are investing real money ($119+) in owning their “business” and expecting “financial freedom” in return.

Look, I admire your ambition to have “financial freedom”, and when you spam me on Facebook asking me to buy X, Y, Z product, I really feel bad for you and wish I could help you, but I’m not interested in spending $45 for you to make a $13.50 commission just to make you feel less stupid.

Also, $13.50 is not “financial freedom”. It’s a cheeseburger and fries. And you need to sell 27 Jamberry nail sheets just to break even with your “start up” fees of $119. Which means you need to sell 30 to afford a meal at McDonalds. Math, people. Learn it.

Let’s do the math, shall we? Jamberry promises its consultants a minimum 30% commission on products sold. So, if you sell $1,000 worth of Jamberry products, you’ll earn $300. The nail wraps cost $15/each.

That means you have to sell 67 Jamberry nail wraps in order to make $300. If “financial freedom” is your goal, that’s a lofty one.

In order to make the same amount of money as a minimum wage job before taxes, you would need to sell 258 nail wraps…per month. You’d make $1,160/month if you sold 258 wraps.

Since Jamberry likes to push the buy 3 get 1 free deal, let’s assume you can sell Jamberry wraps to customers 3 at a time. This means you need to have 86 people buy 3 wraps each every month.

Ask yourself: do you even know 86 people, much less 86 people willing to charge their credit card $45 for some ugly nail wraps?

Jamberry touts itself as being a cheaper, quality alternative to a traditional in salon/spa mani/pedi.

However, the reason I go out for a mani/pedi is to relax. To be pampered. For me, it’s worth the $60-75 trips to the salon or spa.

For women who regularly get manis and pedis, the salon is a method of relaxing and convenience – these women do not have time to fool around in the bathroom for 15 minutes with a blowdryer or mini heater and apply vinyl stickers to their fingers and toes. They just don’t.

That leaves us with Jamberry’s target demographic: stay at home moms.

Jamberry lures them in with the funky nail wraps and friendship of other moms, then goes in for the kill: what Jamberry really wants is not to sell vinyl nail wraps, it wants to sell you on the idea that you can be financially successful if only you would sign up and hand over $119 to push their products.

Think about it: does Jamberry need consultants? No.

When’s the last time you needed a consultant to buy nail polish or products? You hear about something through word of mouth or advertising, and you try it.

You might be thinking, “Well, that’s why Jamberry needs consultants – for word of mouth advertising.” And that assumption is incorrect because marketing consultants, in the real world, get paid to market a product – they do not hand over cash upfront in order to have the privilege of marketing a product.

They do not pay for the products they market. They are employees – not self-employed “business owners”.

Jamberry operates by scamming women into signing up to be consultants so they don’t have to pay employees or their benefits – not because they want women to become successful business owners or have financial freedom.

SO, ladies, please, stop signing up for Jamberry. Take that $119 and get your hair and nails done, or set up your own Etsy shop, or, hey, start a blog!

Jamberry is not going to give you financial freedom. It’s just going to make you feel like a dope and you will lose friends over it, or at the very least change your friendships with women who are judging you for being naive, who are disappointed in the product you endorsed, or who feel awkward about being asked to spend money they don’t have to make you $13.50/sale ($45 * 30% = $13.50).

I bet your friendships are worth more than $13.50 each, so lay off the Jam juice.

It’s not just me who knows Jamberry is a scam. Take a look at these other stories:

Read the follow up post here.

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