This is the ninth post in a series of articles that will help you avoid scams and invest your time and money into legitimate business opportunities. You can find the whole series in the Business Scams section.
Why Buy From You?
If you are planning on starting a business, one of the most important questions you must ask yourself is “what value will I offer my customers?”
Taking this one step further, you must not only be able to provide some value to your customers, but you must also be able to provide them with more value than your competition.
In other words, before starting a business, you should ask yourself why people will choose to buy goods and services from you, and not somebody else.
This concept is a vital part of the value proposition.
Products Must be Competitive
A common hallmark of scam business opportunities is providing goods or services for sale that can be bought elsewhere for cheaper prices.
One of the most popular markets that scammers offer overpriced products in is the health and well being market.
In addition to inflating the prices of their products, these businesses often operate in a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) structure, which can be a strong indication of a bogus business opportunity in itself.
The way in which these operations work is to recruit distributors who will buy the products at wholesale prices and offer them to sale to the general public. The parent entity will make money by selling products to the distributors, and usually there is a no refund policy.
The distributor will therefore have to sell the products to retail consumers in order to recoup the money they forked out for the stock, and potentially make a profit. Often the retail prices of these products are more expensive than prices for similar goods found in regular retail outlets, so the distributor may find it difficult to sell the stock.
No Value = No Sale
This kind of situation is not restricted to the health and well being market, nor is it found only in MLM structures.
Any business opportunity that does not appear to offer value through competitive prices or superior customer service should be approached with caution.
Read the next post in the series Part 10 – Use of the Word Guranteed
Read the previous post in the series Part 8 – Turnkey Systems
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