My Lularoe Experience

It was May of 2016.  My friend, K, invited me to a Facebook party selling Lularoe. I had never heard of it.  I logged in to watch the party, and saw some beautiful clothes.  Not only were the clothes beautiful, the ladies seemed to love them.  By this point, my wardrobe had become mostly work out pants and t-shirts, partly because I ran a lot, and partly because I was tired of looking for clothes for larger women only to end up disappointed.  K was selling Lola skirts. I snatched up three.  I couldn't believe I had paid twice what I usually pay for clothes, but I loved them. I was hooked.

When I checked out, there was a google form asking if I was interested in learning more about Lularoe.  I checked the "heck yes" box.  Honestly, it only said "yes", but I was that interested.

I received an email from K telling me about the start up costs.  Five thousand dollars or more.  Yikes!  She explained that I could get a zero percent interest credit card, and if I put all profit on it, I could pay off my initial investment in time.  Before I made the step, I talked with my husband, and scoured the internet for anything bad about Lularoe.  There was nothing.  Since it seemed to be a ground floor company, I went for it.  I wanted to be at the beginning of the wave of ladies selling these clothes.

Before I go any farther, I love K.  She is a dear friend.  If she had not signed me up, my life would not be enriched by all the ladies I met through Lularoe.  For that alone, I love her. I already loved her, but I am thankful she shared the opportunity with me.  At that time, it was an opportunity.  I have met so many lovely people.

As a side note, my family and I had recently moved.  Right before the move, I found out I had breast cancer.  What was originally thought to be stage 2, ended up being stage 4 and metastasized.  I wanted to help pay medical bills. I wanted to help get my daughter through college.  This seemed like the kind of job that would work around my tired days, and I could feel like less of a drain on the family's finances.

K told me Lularoe was adding people slowly and it would take three months to get "onboarded".  That was fine with me. My family was visiting that summer and I wanted to focus on them.  I told my family and friends about Lularoe.  Here was this company with amazing clothes.  The clothes were, at the time, mostly made in America.  The ones made overseas were supposedly in ethical factories. I assumed that is why the prices were so high. The company encouraged us to support each other.  I loved the clothes and the message of sister hood. 

My onboard call actually came way too early. It was around the beginning of July. I told them I wasn't ready yet and needed a month.  Less than a month later, they called me and I signed up. even though I still would have been happy to wait a bit longer  I enthusiastically ordered the 6000 package, excited about this new opportunity I was starting.  . 

The onboarding kit arrived on August 15th.  I excitedly opened it and started photographing.  Some of the inventory was really cute.  A lot of it was okay.  A lot of it was also pretty ugly.  One of my biggest issues was that all of my XXS Julias were fourth of July Julias. This was August.  XXS is hard to sell anyway.  Yes, I do have the majority of these Julias over a year later.  There was also a ton of duplicate prints, and not cute ones!

The photographing was hard.  I needed better light.  I did my best and launched. The launch was very successful, despite my horrible photography.  I  secretly gave out discounts because it was my friends ordering, and because the prices seemed so very high to me.  It was so exciting to be making money for the first time in years.

After my friends purchased, it was time to also add more customers.  Life went on in a blur.  Photograph, upload, sell, package, try to find more VIP's (customers), try to answer questions.  Sales were good.

October came.  On a Tuesday call, Mark and Deanne announced Halloween leggings.  There was no notice or any pre-orders.  There were also no limits.  It was the Hunger games with ordering online.  We were all in a pit fighting for the same scraps.  If I could even get leggings in my cart, the server crashed.  Finally, I scored 70 pairs of leggings.  Nobody on my team had succeeded.  We split the leggings among the five of us so everybody could get a part of the  Halloween sales.

Halloween leggings sold like hot cakes.  Everybody wanted those.  It was the best sale in my entire Lularoe  journey.  Sadly, the sales mojo would not last.

Remember how I said I wanted to get in on the ground floor?  None of my friends had heard of Lularoe besides me.  Around the time, I set up my selling page, a whole bunch of other Lularoe selling pages popped up.  It was official.  Pretty much everyone had heard about Lularoe.  We were assured on Tuesday calls that Lularoe was not oversaturating the market.  They cited the amount of Avon consultants as an example.  I was nervous.  Cosmetics get used up and then you need to buy more.  Clothes?  Not so much.  However, I naively thought they were the professionals and knew what they were doing.  I should have listened to my instincts and left then.

There was also a tall and curvy legging shortage.  If the leggings showed up in Build (the platform where we ordered), they were gone in less than three minutes. No joke.  The company continued adding consultants while not having enough inventory for the consultants they already had.  We were not allowed to say anything negative.  It was all about unicorns crapping rainbows.  No questioning or criticism was allowed.  Mark said to focus on selling what we did have, and that Lularoe was not originally known for their leggings.  Maybe not, but that was what customers wanted.

Around this time, I was starting to feel the effects of one of my estrogen blocking medications called Femara.  Not only was I upset when I tried to order leggings, I was crying. I was sad and angry and completely distraught.  One day a consultant who knew I was looking told me they were up. I went in and tried to order and nothing. I told her I was actually crying and explained why.  She felt sorry for me and ordered some leggings to come to me under my account. I don't know her name anymore, but her compassion floors me to this day.

While this was going on, I was also buying from other consultants.  We were supposed to wear Lula all the time so I thought that meant it was tax deductible. I would scour the sales trying to score my "unicorn" prints.  It was not tax deductible. Oops.  That is bad business on my part.

November came and sales were pretty slow.  In December, the elegant collection was announced.  The majority of it didn't sell. I ended up wholesaling it to other consultants. I still have three pieces nobody wanted   The Stidhams exhorted us to get out there and sell, sell, sell.  This was the best time of year for sales!  I paid to go to an in person sale and did okay, but it didn't offset the 70.00 it cost to join.  I had a box of Carly dresses come in the day before that sale.  One sold at that sale.  It was the unique one.  The rest were meh.

Sometime in November or December, I missed a weekly call.  That was when Christmas leggings were announced. I heard about it when I got home. Of course there were none left, as the company does not give timely announcements or limit ordering.

December was also the last month to send any unsold inventory back to Lularoe.  It had to be in its original bags, and sent at our cost.  We would receive 85% of what we paid.  Consultants would no longer be able to sell back inventory unless they were going out of business.

January came.  I assumed people weren't buying because they were broke from Christmas.  Sales became harder and harder.  I would get up in the morning and start taking pictures, posting, make outfits and think strategy.  My son told me all I ever did was take pictures of clothing.  My family missed me.  Nothing was getting done around the house.  I was obsessed with figuring out how to sell.  What was I doing wrong?   I kept taking new photographs thinking it was my bad photography. I couldn't fall asleep at night because my head swam with worry.

I believe it was around this point the Stidhams did their weekly call from Mexico. My husband joked they were going there to find a place to hide all the money they were stealing.  He was probably more truthful than he realized.

I can't remember when the holey leggings started showing up.  Lots of VIP's were getting holey leggings.  I was pretty lucky that most of my ladies did not, but lots of consultants were losing money on them.  Mark Stidham called the upset about the leggings, "A tempest in a teapot."  He acted like 25.00 was nothing.  Maybe he wipes his butt with twenties, but the rest of us don't.

"Think like a retailer," we were constantly told.  "Everything sells."  A retailer is allowed to have sales.  A retailer gets to sell in the market they choose.  We were not allowed to have any kind of discount sales unless we asked our VIP's to pm for prices.  Newsflash - Nobody wants to pm for prices.  We were not allowed to sell at ebay or swap meets or Mercari.  How is one a retailer if they are not allowed to discount what isn't selling?

On one call, Mark told us that our inventory was not stale.  We were stale. Our VIP's were stale.  Find new markets!  I am not sure where these new markets were, as Lularoe was definitely oversaturated.

In January, Valentine's Day leggings were announced.  The Stidhams had FINALLY listened to us and put caps on ordering. Unfortunately, the leggings were pretty much a flop. I have tons of them left.  If anybody wants them, I will offer buy one get one free.  They are great for putting under your ski pants I have been told!

I spent the beginning of 2017 making outfits and paying money to be in multi-sales.  Getting a sale was like pulling teeth.  Meanwhile, all the (non-stale) inventory I had ordered was mocking me with its inability to move.

In April, the Stidhams announced a 100% buy back for those leaving the company.  They would even pay for shipping.  A Lula friend and I had reserved a local community center for the second Saturday of every month of 2017 in hopes it would boost sales so I wasn't ready to throw in the towel. yet.  Yes, I sound stupid at this point, but I had so many beautiful items and I was trying to find the market for them.  Actually, I probably sounded stupid several paragraphs back for not seeing the writing on the wall.

My last order was sometime in May. I though if I ordered the Lola summer skirts, sales might be better.  I sold ONE Lola.  It was black.  The rest of them looked like discards from Grandma's attic.  Even though the Stidhams claimed they were not sending back returned inventory, it was obvious they were.  I gave up, and spent the summer with friends and family.  It felt good to be done, but I needed to resign and send back the inventory I had.  I assumed I would partially pay my credit card with what I received back.  Then I would have to find a way to pay off the rest.  This is really hard when you are a 48 year old stay at home mom with cancer, but I ran up the debt.  I will pay off the debt. I might be a crappy businesswoman, but I am an honest person.

On August 5th, I opened a ticket and resigned. This is exactly the way my team mates had resigned.  I heard nothing. Three weeks later they told me I had to email the contract cancellations department.  So then I did that and heard nothing.  They changed their resignation process several times, I have been told.  But at least I had resigned when it was 100% back.  In the meantime, I was finding stuff around the house to sell on ebay so I could pay on the card.

Then, with their usual lack of advance notice, the Stidhams announced they were changing their policy back to us paying shipping for returns and receiving 90% of value.  They were also not taking capsule items.  That means the 4-5 Julia dresses they sent in my onboard package, that I did not order, they will not take back.  I had also already traded clothing with a very good friend consultant as I was done. I was tired. I didn't want to take any more pictures and chase people who didn't want to spend money. My friend is still in and I want her to be successful.  I have zero regrets about doing this.  She is an amazing and lovely lady. The stuff I have left is not the most sought after prints  Are there even sought after prints anymore? I also don't trust the Stidhams at this point to even pay me if I sent it back.  Tons of ladies have sent their stuff back and are waiting on their checks.  I am scared for these ladies. |This company is unethical and they lie.

Recently, one last lula-baby has joined  the team I was on.  She was sent old, really old, prints that do not sell.  |This company who said, they would "bless" their warehouse workers or donate the send backs to charity, out and out lied.  They sent my friend tons of stuff that will not sell.   They sent hideous inventory in an oversaturated market.

They only care about getting YOUR money.  They do not care about you.  If anybody ever gives you the chance to join this company, run away!  I am older and smarter and have learned my lesson.  Too bad it was a 20,000 lesson.  Too bad it will be even harder to sell this stuff with all the other panicked consultants.  Too bad the Stidhams will probably walk off rich, and the small people will pay.