What’s amazing is that shoe sellers may also sell cosmetics and explain to people how to use it. They may also advise which types of cosmetics are preferable for consumers. This means that these sellers give advice to cosmetologists. Probably the main reason for this is the fact that our citizens still haven’t realized how important it is to take care of their skin and themselves professionally. In spite of this tendency recently Armenian women have started to take care of themselves more and they already pay attention to cosmetics companies and the content of those products (natural, etc.).
In developed countries cosmetics are usually sold in special shops. Moreover, according to specialists serious companies sell their products in prestigious beauty salons and drug stores as a good means of taking care of their health. Of course there are consumers who buy cheap products in these countries too, but specialists assure that here money is proportional to your health: i.e. the more you pay, the more you will save. According to specialists of this field the “culture” level of using cosmetics is very low in Armenia. We buy cosmetics from anywhere it is possible and prefer cheap cosmetics. In Armenia cosmetics is also sold through net marketing. This system has a very specific factor: agents make their profits from the sold products on a percentage basis. Even more, agents can also have another job. The only problem here is that this work is not considered to be work experience.
There are a lot of cosmetics companies working through net marketing in Armenia, among which are “Oriflame”, “Mary Kay” and others. We tried to find out how many agents Oriflame has in Armenia and what kind of annual turnover it has. The general representative, Naira Margaryan didn’t want to meet us because she was very busy. We managed to do something else: we contacted one of their directors (each agent that has created a big network of agents is considered to be director) named Narine and said that we were looking for a job and wanted to join their company. She told us that in order to get membership we had to first pay 2.900 dram and then get acquainted with their products. Then we had to buy some products from them, advertise and sell. The income covers 23% of the sum of sold products. They also give presents sometimes. Besides that in case of selling a lot of products and collecting the adequate number of points you can get more percents. The central office is responsible for collecting information about their members and that information is kept in their office.
Regarding their business Narine says, “A person can’t sell much solely, you have to recruit and mobilize more people. Your income goes up based on that. You should have a lot of friends and a talent of advertising the products; otherwise you will not be able to succeed. Of course you can suggest our products to people that you don’t know, but this doesn’t work effectively”.
According to her, Oriflame products have good quality, are natural and not expensive. Each month they have sales. And during these periods their agents try to buy these products with lower prices so to make more profit and sell easier. But in fact people who have created big networks of agents earn good money; the others that don’t have networks don’t earn much. A lot of people use this type of cosmetics because it is not expensive. But according to specialists the cosmetics sold through network marketing usually doesn’t have good quality. They say that usually good cosmetics cost much. Specialists usually don’t trust cheap cosmetics. Good specialists say that it is not good to use cheap cosmetics, it is better not to use at all than to use cheap cosmetics. Recently the RA quality inspection conducted some researches and found violations in the field of cosmetic market. Most of these violations concern not having Armenian brands and any certification of quality. According to the deputy chief of the quality inspection, Boris Sahakyan, the products that have been presented to them have been tested for quality. “We found out that these products comply with all security standards”, says Mr. Sahakyan. But cosmetologists don’t agree with this. According to them most of the cosmetics sold in Armenia are made of cheap, chemical materials and are dangerous for health. In Armenia there is no large supply of good cosmetics, because there is not enough demand either. Our citizens still don’t realize that by buying expensive and good cosmetics they both take care of their health better and save money. Anyway this is what specialists say.
P.S. Recently the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had a meeting with Russian national security board officials and said that they should be more careful where businesses get financial support from. According to the Russian press this mostly concerns foreign profitable and non-profit organizations and companies operating in their territory (as well as Oriflame), where “former officers” of “the special services” of NATO countries are the top officials. It is quite possible that these companies get financial support from abroad and operate in these countries by trying to get information about the internal political life. Now please imagine that Oriflame company, which was founded by the Robert and Yonas Af Yoknik brothers in Sweden in 1967, has over 3000 representations and chapters in CIS countries. According to the information, as of December 31, 2004, this company had over 800.000 “independent advisors” in post-Soviet and Baltic States. Probably the corresponding bodies should be interested in what these companies are doing in countries such as Georgia, Uzbekistan and Armenia. Do they sponsor color revolutions?-maybe. You can read the article written by the Russian press in our next publication.