FTC In South Korea Reveals Average MLM Incomes

 

The South Korea FTC released information on the country's multi-level direct marketing companies and their distributors.

Distributors at Amway in South-Korea made an average of 770,000 won ($760)  last year, data by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) showed Tuesday.

According to the data, the number of such companies has been growing steadily, to 106 last year from 67 in 2010.

These companies recorded 3.9 trillion won in combined sales last year, up 19.9 percent from the previous year.

They paid their distributors 1.3 trillion won as commission, but the income was concentrated on only a handful of them ? while the top 1 percent of the active distributors were paid on average 56.6 million won for 2013, the remaining 99 percent made 469,000 won on average.

The number of those who got commissions was 1.3 million, or 22 percent of the total registered as distributors at these multi-level direct sales companies.

Among the multi-level direct marketing companies in the country, Amway Korea is the biggest, with 1.1 trillion won in sales and 1.1 million distributors last year.

Among them, 456,797 got sales commissions totaling 353.3 billion won ? an average of 770,000 won each.

Herbalife in Korea, ranked as the second-biggest player in the industry, with 568.3 billion won in sales last year. The company has 302,000 distributors registered. Among them, 53,000 got 195.3 billon won as commission, or 3.7 million won each.

Nu Skin, a U.S.-based cosmetics company, followed the list, with 560.7 billion won in sales.

We released the data to help people make rational choices, in buying the products of these companies or joining them as a distributor. We aim at protecting consumers and enhancing trust in the multi-level direct sales market, eventually setting an order in transactions, the FTC said.

It stressed that those who pay a lot in commissions to distributors are not necessarily the best companies. The law stipulates that the multi-level direct marketing companies shouldn't pay more than 35 percent of sales as commissions.

Most of the multi-level direct marketing companies sell health supplements, cosmetics, communication products, daily commodities and health equipment.

Source: The Korea Times