Thirty One Gifts MLM Review: Apparel MLM Scam or Easy Money Opportunity?

Thirty One Gifts Review

The overview and rankings

What to look for in a MLM:

What is Thirty One Gifts?

Thirty One Gifts is a Multi-Level-Marketing company that is in the direct sales retail sector.

They sell personalized gifts which come in the form of bags, clothes, purses, and many more.

Cindy Monroe started the company back in 2003 after getting inspiration from the party planning events that she attended. It’s based in Columbus, Ohio and targets mainly female consumers.

The name of the company, Thirty One Gifts comes from Proverbs 31 which talks about the kindness and generosity of household women.

The company is ranked third next to Tupperware and Mary Kay as well, so that’s a great sign this one’s a legit MLM.

Check out this 1-minute video showing what Thirty One Gifts is all about...

Who is Cindy Monroe?

Cindy Monroe is the founder and current CEO of Thirty One Gifts.

She has around 1,000 employees and more than 70,000 sales consultants around the country.

Is Thirty One Gifts a pyramid scheme?

Nope, Thirty One Gifts isn’t a pyramid scheme.

The members of this MLM can still make money by selling their personalized gift products without recruiting members.

But a better question for companies like this is… Is Thirty One Gifts a pyramid scheme in disguise?

What is a pyramid scheme?

A company promising members monetary payment for recruiting members instead of selling real products and services.

Numerous countries have banned companies like these as not everyone is able to make money from a company that only pays members for recruitment.

See the Wikipedia diagram below to have a better understanding of this...

The members that are making the most money are those who recruit people to join to experience the alleged “business opportunity.”

But if you were to base from the diagram, you can clearly see that not everyone can make money from a system like this as you’ll eventually be running out of people you can recruit.

Check out this 5-minute video so you’ll know how you can spot these “pyramid schemes in disguise.”

Success is rare with Thirty One Gifts

In fact, 90.19% of Thirty One Gifts members lose money!

This is because of the “sales quota” that these MLMs have which means that members must sell a certain number of products monthly to stay active and receive commissions.

If they can’t sell that number of products, then they need to buy them themselves. This is why most members lose hundreds and even thousands of dollars from their own pocket just to try and recruit a single person.

We’ll be digging into the Thirty One Gifts income disclosure later in this in-depth Thirty One Gifts review.

How does Thirty One Gifts Work?

Thirty One Gifts is an MLM company selling women’s clothes, apparels, and accessories.

They also have an affiliate program which offers the average joe an opportunity to work from home by selling their products and getting commissions.

It sounds like a win-win situation...

But the fact is that MLM companies such as Thirty One Gifts save millions of dollars on marketing costs because they just let the members do all the promotional hard work by themselves.

Before we conclude that this is really the case, let’s know more about...

Thirty One Gifts products

Before going deeper, it’s important that you know their products especially if you’re really interested in trying your luck in this MLM.

Knowing about their products is important for you to somehow increase the chances of success.

Here are Thirty One Gift’s best-sellers:

• All Packed Duffle Charcoal Crosshatch ($80) - A crosshatch bag that’s ideal for everyday use, be it in the gym, camping, or shopping. Its elegant and minimalist accent along its charcoal finish add up to its appeal.
• City Chic Bag Chestnut Distressed Pebble ($68) - A shoulder bag featuring a zipper pocket, zip-top closure, and two flat pockets. It’s lightweight and ideal for all-day carrying. There’s also a secret pocket for your phone.
• All About the Benjamins ($48) - A full-sized wallet featuring 12 credit card slots, zip closure, and an internal zip pocket. It’s stylish, practical, and lightweight.

It’s smart to be aware that there are numerous other brands out there that are offering a similar range of items.

There are even hundreds of MLM companies offering similar fashion items such as:

• Lularoe (women's clothing)
• Dot Dot Smile (children's clothing)
• Paparazzi Jewelry (jewelry)
• Pink Zebra (perfumes)
  

All of them claim they’ve got a special reason or exclusively rare feature that makes them different. When the reality is, they’re all offering the same opportunity.

If that’s the case, then what makes them special?

Thirty One Gifts flagship product

Around Town Tote Terrazzo Pebble ($78) - A large-sized tote bag that features a minimalist and classy design. It’s ideal for shopping, trekking, or any casual use. It’s a carryall kind of bag.

Here's a 1-minute video about their product lineup:

Sure sounds appealing, but...

Can you make money with Thirty One Gifts?

Sad to say that it’s hard to make money from Thirty One Gifts.

There might be a few people who earn slightly higher than minimum wage, but they work very hard much like how sales manager do.

They even treat it as a full-time job! And for what? For payment that’s just slightly higher than minimum wage if you're really good?

There’s even no guarantee you can make money based on what their income disclosure shows.

How to make money with Thirty One Gifts

There are 2 ways that you can earn some money from Thirty One Gifts:

• Sell their products to earn bonuses and commissions

• Recruit members into the MLM and include them in your downline

Note that you can only earn bonuses from the sales of your downlines and not just because you’ve recruited them.

I can say that this is a smart way for MLMs to avoid being called a pyramid scheme because they earn indirectly from their recruited members. This is similar to what Stella and Dot do too. . This is similar to what Stella and Dot do too. .

Before diving into their compensation plan, let’s first know...

How much does it cost to join Thirty One Gifts?

You have to pay a registration fee of $99 for you to become a member and distributor.

However, you can also choose the $179 deluxe kit option if you want to have a business starter kit worth $600.

Thirty One Gifts monthly cost

For you to stay active and remain as a distributor, you need to sell a minimum of 67 PV monthly or 200 PV every three months.

This is equivalent to $67 monthly or $200 quarterly.

The cost of becoming a member for 1 year are:

• $99 - $179

• $67 x 12 = $804

Minimum costs for year 1 = $903 - $983

And that’s before you add up all the other miscellaneous costs such as gas, travel, food, and training allowance expenses...

Thirty One Gifts compensation plan

MLM companies just love to make their compensation plans complicated and confusing.

Well, Thirty One Gifts is no different… But I’ll be doing my best to keep this simple and straightforward…

There are 4 ways that Thirty One Gifts will pay you as one of their members:

• Retail Commissions - Earn 25% to 34% commission from each of your sales, depending on your rank.
• Recruitment Commissions - Earn 2% to 9% of the total sales of your downline team for the month, depending on your rank.
• Developing Director Bonus - Earn $1,000 to $7,500 when you get promoted to the Director rank, depending on your Director level.
• Party Hosting - Earn $25 and 50% discount on every $200 worth of products sold in hosted parties.

No worries if you’re still confused because that’s completely normal for MLMs.

MLM companies such as Thirty One Gifts just love to use weird names and complicated acronyms to make it seem there are many ways to earn money.

When the reality is, there are only 2 ways…

• Sell their products
• Recruit members

Anyways, here’s an 8-minute video about their compensation plan.

Is Thirty One Gifts a scam?

Thirty One Gifts isn’t a scam because they sell real and legit products and pay members exactly as they say.

The thing is, many members are disappointed to know that they’re not earning good money.

Many of them even lose money because of the sales quota. This is why there are a number of reports saying that they are a scam...

The next part of this review will help you make an informed decision if it’s worth your time or if it’s a bit sketchy...

What I like about Thirty One Gifts

Key Terms:

• Pyramid Scheme – recruits members via a promise for payment from recruiting others into the company rather than providing a product
• Affiliate Marketing- Connecting a customer to a product they are looking for and receiving a commission for doing so
• Red Flag - A warning sign

#1 Nice startup kit

One of the best things I find about Thirty One Gifts is that they’ve got an appealing startup kit.

It’s not very expensive if you’re going to choose the basic $99 kit which gives you $400 worth of products to begin with. That’s a huge win if you were to compare it to some other MLMs and if you just want the products...

#2 Provides useful training

Another nice thing I find about Thirty One Gifts is that they provide training to their distributors along with a dedicated personalized website.

These feature professional training videos are on how you can increase your sales.

#3 Positive member reviews

I did some digging into other review sites and forums to see what other people were saying about the company. Here's an example from Glassdoor...

But when thre are pros, then there surely are cons as well...

What I don't like about Thirty One Gifts

#1 Hidden monthly expenses

Being a member means that you must reach 67 PV monthly for you to stay as an active member.

This to me makes no sense because why do you need to maintain a sales quota when what you’ve signed up for is to become a distributor to sell their products?

67 PV means that you must sell $67 worth of products every month to stay active and earn commissions.

If you can’t do this, then you must buy them yourself.

What MLMs don’t say is that their biggest customer base is their members who just keep buying their stuff in the hope that they can be their own boss soon.

#2 Is Thirty One Gifts a pyramid scheme in disguise?

You can avoid spending $67 every single month just to stay active by recruiting people and passing the buck to them.

Here's what's actually happening...

You then motivate them to sell $67 worth of products every month so that they can earn… Something sounds fishy there, right?

#3 Only 1 in 83 members earn over $10k a year

Meanwhile, 83.9% of the total members are only earning $1,999 every year while 93% of the members spend around $1,387 annually...

What that means in simpler words is that only 1 in 83 members earn over $10k a year!

#4 Downward trend

The final deal breaker for me is what I found in Google Trends.

There are fewer people searching for Thirty One Gifts, which means that they’re not anymore that popular and sought out.

This also means that you are going to have a harder time selling their products to people...

My opinion - Thirty One Gifts

Thirty One Gifts offers interesting apparels and women’s accessories all while offering averagely interesting incentives to MLMs.

But what would I say if you were to ask me about the business opportunity here?...

The only real way you can make money is by recruitment.

Recruit as many people as you can and encourage them to sell, sell, and sell to everyone they know just to stay active and for them to not lose money.

The fact is, most, if not all of these people are going to lose money.

That doesn’t sound like an ethical business model to me...

How I make passive income online

MLMs are not scams or illegal. However, I'm not a fan of them because of the restrictions to the expensive products you have to promote.

Once I learnt about affiliate marketing, I realised it's a far superior business model because:

• You can promote anything you want and truly own the business
• You never need to sell to friends and family
• It's completely free to start

In 2018 I had no idea what affiliate marketing was.