The direct selling industry is governed by the Direct Selling Association (DSA). They are responsible for policing the industry and have placed a number of rules and guidelines in place to help member companies stay within legal and ethical boundaries.
At the 2007 DSA conference, they released some interesting statistics:
Southern African Statistics 06/07
The following are official statistics as published by the DSA for South Africa.
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329,000 registered consultants
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Total sales volume generated by these consultants is R3,5 Billion
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They corporately earn R1.2 Billion
This means that the average income per active consultant is R3,647 per month.
To put this into perspective, the average income in South Africa is R1,800 for women and R3,000 for men. When you consider that the vast majority of MLMers are part-timers, the industry is doing really well.
As with any industry, you will find that 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work and earning 80% of the money. If we apply the 80/20 principle to the above statistics then we come to the conclusion that 65,000 independent business owners have earned R960 Million. This means that 16,000 people are earning an average of R14,000 per month. There are not many industries that can make this claim.
Company Turnover
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5 companies doing over R300M
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4 companies doing between R200 – R300M
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5 companies doing between R100 – R200M
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2 companies doing between R50 – R100M
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20 companies doing between R10 – R50M
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8 companies doing Under R10M
I find it staggering that in a country with high unemployment, low average income and a very expensive trading environment, we have 16 companies doing over R50 Million per year. Five of these companies are doing in excess of R300 Million and I am aware of one company doing in excess of R570 Million per year.
When an industry can provide this type of income for this many people, it requires serious investigation.