Matilda Jane MLM review: A Legit MLM or A Pyramid Scheme?

Welcome to my Matilda Jane Review.

You probably came to this page because you wonder if Matilda Jane is legit or a scam?

No need to worry you’re in the right place for the answers to these questions.

Over the last few years, I’ve been busy creating reviews about all kinds of online products.

Some turned out to be fake others were legit ways to make money online but in the process, I learned how to spot scams.

In this post, I’ll show you absolutely everything you need to know about Matilda Jane and after reading it you’ll know exactly if you should give it a chance.

What is Matilda Jane Clothing?

Matilda Jane is a multi-level marketing company that was founded in 2005 by the late Denise DeMarchis.

The company manufactures and distributes women’s and children’s casual apparel and accessories. The company does this by using the MLM model where independent sellers promote and sell their products.

Matilda Jane Clothing headquarters is located at 3619 Centennial Dr, Ft Wayne, IN 46808, USA

How does Matilda Jane Clothing work?

In short, Matilda Jane Clothing is a company that distributes casual apparel and accessories. Instead of directly selling it to consumers they have chosen to use the MLM model which gives you the choice to earn money by:

• Selling the products for a commission
• Recruiting people to earn bonuses.

What is MLM?

MLM (a.k.a network marketing or direct selling) stands for multi-level marketing.

According to Wikipedia, multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue is derived from a non-salaried workforce.

As a part of this workforce, you sell the products from the company, and/or you recruit people to do the same thing. This group of people you recruit will work under you and is referred to as your downline.

The bigger your downline is the more money you can earn passively (technically speaking) because you’re getting paid a percentage based on the performance of your downline.

This also means the person that recruited you which is called your upline is making money based on your performance.

The act of recruiting turns an MLM company into a pyramid-shaped organization where the first people to join make the most and are on the top of the pyramid and those last to join are at the bottom.

Source: Wikipedia

MLMs have been around for a long time. There are Multi-level marketing companies active today that were founded in the 1950s. MLM has a lot in common with pyramid schemes which is why scammers often use MLM to disguise their pyramid scheme.

Is it absolutely necessary to recruit people? No.

You can also stick to just selling products that you can order and re-sell to make a profit. This is easier said than done for multiple reasons which are why most members try to recruit others so they can earn more money.

How to join Matilda Jane Clothing

You have to be introduced by a member or you can sign-up through the website. After that, you have to purchase their starters pack of $100 (deposit is non-refundable). After that, they’ve a payment plan available for the rest of the start-up costs.

On the website, it used to say that the first deposit was $1600 but I think they realised that a price like that scares most people away. The remaining $1500 is split up in their payment plans (which they don’t talk about on their website).

The enrollment package contains:

• An inventory assortment of girls clothing and accessories
• Promotional items and marketing materials
• Rack and hangers.

You’ll go through their training after which you’re ready to start selling products and recruit people.

Is Matilda Jane Clothing a pyramid scheme?

To answer this question we need to know what a pyramid scheme is.

What is a pyramid scheme?

A pyramid scheme is a type of scam where people are promised money for joining the scheme and recruiting other people. No selling of a product or service is involved whatsoever.

So you might be wondering where the money comes from?

The people that join are expected to pay a one-time fee and in exchange for that, they get a percentage of the fee of everyone they recruit after that.

The problem is from a mathematical standpoint it’s impossible for everyone to make money because you simply run out of people.

Take a look at this picture below showing how it’s impossible for everyone to earn money.

Source: Wikipedia

As you can see, in this pyramid model it’s required to recruit 6 people. You’ll notice from the 12th level and further, it’s not possible anymore for everyone to earn money.

The 2.2 Billion people on the 12th level need 13.1 billion recruits in total for them all to make money which is more people than there are currently on Earth.

Looking at the description of what a pyramid scheme is, Matilda Jane Clothing can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme from a legal perspective. Matilda Jane sells products and has given people a method to make money without recruiting people.

That being said, there definitely is something a bit sketchy going on. Read below to find out what I mean.

Who can benefit from Matilda Jane Clothing?

Who would benefit from joining Matilda Jane:

• Expert salesmen
• Expert recruiters

Who shouldn’t join Matilda Jane:

• People that hate sales jobs.
• People that hate recruiting
• People that don’t have the budget for it
• People that expect to earn passive income

Matilda Jane Clothing products

A good MLM should have quality products that you can sell so I thought it was appropriate to look at what they offer. Matilda Jane is a clothing and accessorie company geared towards adult women, young girls, and babies. Matilda Jane has 1 named collection called “momma and me”.

Matilda Jane sells products such as dresses, leggings, jeans, hats, layers, sports bras, tops, and other smaller accessories.

When I compared the products they sell here with other companies, I noticed that Matilda Janes products are pretty expensive.

An example of that is the Leanna Women’s Drape Back Tunic which costs $58. You could easily find the same kind of Tunic for half the price on other websites such as Target.

I can imagine this making it hard for trunk keepers to sell the products.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Matilda Jane products have tangible benefits
  Unlike MLM’s that sell essential oils you know exactly what you’re getting and how it works. This makes it easier to sell to people.
• Matilda Jane has been around for a long time
  It has proven to be a stable company which even survived the last financial crisis. 
• Grace months
  Your account isn’t immediately deactivated when you don’t fulfil your monthly quota. You have 1 grace month per season where you get an exemption,
• High Commission rates
  You start at a commission rate of 20% which is high compared to other companies.

Cons

• Expensive products
  The products are compared to what the market is offering. I can imagine this making it harder to sell the products.
• You have to pay to play
  You have to invest a minimum of $1600 just to become a member. After that, you’re also financially investing in the products you’re going to sell.
• Limited to the US and Canada
  The MLM program isn’t available for people outie of the United States and Canada.
• Matilda Jane can still bill you for refunds after membership is terminated.
  Yes even after you quit there’s is the possibility to lose money.

Matilda Jane Clothing Compensation Plan

Matilda Jane can be considered a traditional MLM when you look at their compensation plan. You either re-sell their products for profit or you can recruit people and receive residual income, climb up the ranks, and earn bonuses.

In total there are 7 ranks that all come with their benefits such as getting a higher commission percentage of all your sales starting at 20% to a max of 34%

Ranks
New Trunk keeper 
Returning Trunk keeper 
Senior Trunk Keeper 
Team leader
Senior Team Leader
Executive team leader
National team leader

The compensation plan revolves around what they call commissionable sales volume (CSV). This is the total dollar value of a Matilda Jane product.

How much does it cost to start a Matilda Jane “business”?

This question can be answered by looking at the compensation plan.

Like a lot of MLM compensation plans, the Matilda Jane compensation plan is confusing at first sight. This is why I’m going to only share with you the most important aspects with the help of information out of their policies and procedures documents.

The initial cost for starting a Matilda Jane business is $1600 of which you have to pay $100 immediately. After that, you can pay the rest in monthly terms. 

By paying the initial costs you get the rank of Trunk Keeper.

To be eligible to earn commission you must sell a minimum CSV of $1,500 per month.

Every selling season Matilda Jane has a new collection and you have to earn your active status for the next season by selling a minimum CSV of $8,000 and have 4 months of “Active”.

In summary, to start your business it’ll cost you $1600 and after that, you’ll have to invest $8000 which you’ll have to earn back by reselling the products.

This only applies to remaining in the lowest rank. The higher ranks will require you to sell an even higher CSV.

What happens when you can’t sell the minimum CSV of $1500 for a month?

The moment you don’t fulfil the requirements of selling a minimum CSV of $1500 for 1 month you enter what is called a grace month. The grace month is a month where you get an exemption of the minimum requirements. 

The guidelines of Matilda Jane dictate that you get 1 grace month per season. January and July also count as months outside of the Grace month where there’s no minimum requirement for sales. 

Although they have these exceptions you still need to fulfill the requirement of $8000 per season which means you’ll have to sell more products the following month.

How much can you earn with Matilda Jane Clothing?

The commission rate starts at 20% which is decent and becomes higher every time you increase rank. 

Technically, the sky is the limit but in reality, we know because of factors such as your ability to recruit, your competition, and the performance of your downlines there’s is often a limit. 

Unfortunately, Matilda Jane hasn’t published an income disclosure to see what current members are earning but I do see it shares the same “handicaps” most MLM companies have which prevents members from earning decent money.

Why aren’t people earning decent money with MLM companies like Matilda Jane Clothing?

I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with Matilda Jane and MLM companies in general into 3 points.

1. MLM’s are often associated with pyramid schemes
MLM’s have a pyramid recruiting structure that you often have to join to be able to make decent money or at the very least not lose money. The problem is a lot of pyramid schemes disguise themselves as MLM programs making it difficult to differentiate the two.

This is the biggest problem why most distributors have a difficult time recruiting people. The moment people hear about how you can make money by recruiting people red flags appear in most people’s minds.

2. You have to consistently invest your money to earn commissions
You’re only eligible for bonuses and commissions if you buy their products. The bigger the bonuses the more product you have to buy. You do get discounts but if you can’t sell the products I can see you easily fall into a financial deficit (which happens to the majority of MLMs).

3. The price of the product often isn’t aligned with the market

It’s hard as a multi-level marketer to sell products because most MLM products tend to be a lot more expensive than similar products sold by non-MLM companies. This means even if you’re really good at recruiting your downline still needs to sell those same expensive products for you to make decent money.

You can see that translate in these statistics I found about Multi-level Marketing.

• Nearly half (47%) of MLM participants reported that they lost money.
• One in four (27%) MLM participants reported that they broke even (made no money).
• MLM participants are 7% more likely to declare bankruptcy during their lifetime.
• Direct sales have risen 79% in the last decade, but MLM participants continue to lose money.
• 90 – 99% of distributors in multilevel marketing only receive a couple of hundred dollars commission per year.
• Out of 33,000 interviewed, 90 people made enough money to cover costs in building their business.
• 50% of the people who start a network marketing enterprise abandoned it in the first year.

Sources:
FTC
AARP
Jobsinmarketing.io

Matilda Jane Clothing Reviews, Opinions, and Ratings

To keep this as objective as possible I wanted to look at what others had to say about Matilda Jane. Here are the opinions of a few YouTube Reviewers.

Most of the people reviewing Matilda Jane are Trunk keepers but I did find 1 person that wasn’t. She raised some interesting points.

I also took a look at what the bloggers had to say about Matilda Jane as an MLM company.

Most bloggers don’t consider Matilda Jane a pyramid scam but they don’t think it’s a great idea to join them. Start-up costs are too expensive and it’s hard to succeed if you’re not an early adopter.

My Personal Take

I don’t think that Matilda Jane Clothing is a pyramid scheme. It doesn’t fulfil the requirement s of being called pyramid scheme but I do think the odds are stacked against you as a trunk keeper.

The start-up costs are insanely high and non-refundable so just like that, you can kiss $1600 goodby without knowing if you’re actually capable of selling the products and recruiting people.

After that, there are also monthly costs you have to deal with since you have to purchase products and attempt to resell them. 

Unless you’re an extremely skilled salesmen and recruiter, I’d consider this a big financial risk. I’d rather go with money-making methods that are cheaper and have better odds of succeeding.

Verdict

Is Matilda Jane Clothing MLM worth your time? Unless you’re a skilled salesman or recruiter I think the chances of succeeding are low. It’s not a pyramid scheme but you have to pay an insane amount of money upfront (which isn’t refundable).

Alternative: How to earn commissions without recruiting or reselling products

Matilda Jane might not be a great fit for everyone but that doesn't mean there are no other methods to earn money.

If you’re looking for a way to earn money online from anywhere in the world without needing to recruit or sell products.

Then I might have a solution for you.

Take a look at the recession-proof business model that has helped me and thousands of others say goodbye to the 9-5 grind and earn money on our terms.

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If you have experience with MLM companies like Matilda Jane leave a comment. 

I’d love to hear what you think about it.

That’s all for today. 

See you at my next post!