Global Wealth Trade Review: Luxury goods meets MLM
The product ranges marketed through MLM are as diversified as the number of companies selling them. Targeting the high-end luxury goods market, and hoping to bring a little upper-end department store magic to the MLM sector is Global Wealth Trade.
You wouldn’t think there’d be much of a market for luxury end goods in the current global climate so with products priced well into the thousands, is Global Wealth Trade a MLM company even worth looking at?
Read on for a full review of the Global Wealth Trade business opportunity.
The Company
Global Wealth Trade launched in 2005 and is headed up by founder and CEO Ramin Mesgarlou (photo right).
Details surrounding Mesgarlou’s MLM history before 2005 appear to be scarce but there is some information out there,
From 2000 to 2001 Mesgarlou worked for 3XS Enterprises on a $42,000 a year salary. 3XS Enterprises
sold club memberships to consumers, entitling them to the privilege of purchasing a wide range of household products at discounted prices.
After being fired in 2001, Mesgarlou took 3XS to court for wrongful dismissal and lost.
Other then that, there’s not much out there covering any specifics – Mesgarlou claims to have been involved in the network marketing industry since 1990 and that his family has ‘been in the jewellery-manufacturing business for over 100 years‘.
Presumably Mesgarlou’s family contacts are where Global Wealth Trade source and produce their product range from.
The Global Wealth Trade Product Line
Like a department store, the Global Wealth Trade product line branding is the strength of the company and is what it relies on to drive retail sales.
There’s way too much on offer to go into specifics here, but Global Wealth Trade offer a range of mens and women’s jewelery, handbags, watches, wallets and sunglasses (which GWT calls ‘shields’ for some reason).
Prices start at a few hundred and work their way up to twenty thousand. The most expensive product Global Wealth Trade currently retail I believe is the ‘Mandisa Pendant’, coming in at $19,815.
Compensation Plan
Update 9th Feburary 2013 – In mid 2012 Global Wealth Trade revised their compensation plan. See “Global Wealth Trade v2.0 Review: Luxury autoship?” for an up to date analysis of “v2.0” of the GWT compensation plan.
/end update
The Global Wealth Trade compensation plan revolves around a binary compensation structure and additionally pays out several performance and incentive bonuses.
Here’s a run down of the GWT compensation plan;
Retail Commissions
The retail margin with GWT appears to be around 25%, meaning that you pocket this difference between the wholesale and retail costs.
Retail sales are made to customers who have nothing to do with the GWT business.
Support Bonus
Essentially a recruitment bonus with an action requirement, GWT pay members $150 for each new member brought into the business provided this new member completes the support modules offered by GWT (training).
Binary Commissions
A binary compensation structure places you at the top with two legs branching out from under you. In turn, these two legs branch out into another two legs and so on and so forth.
Here’s a visual of the first few levels of a binary compensation structure:
Within this binary structure, Global Wealth Trade pay you out a commission each time your team makes $3000 in sales.
GWT don’t specify exactly what this commission is, but state that it ranges from $150-$300.
Matching Bonus
Global Wealth Trade offer members a matching bonus that pays out depending on what rank of membership a member has.
- Gold Members earn 5% on the binary commissions earnt by members they directly sponsor
- Titanium members can increase the Gold member commission to 10%
- Platinum members earn 10% on their directly recruited members binary commissions and 5% on their level 2 (members recruited by those they’ve directly recruited)
Residual Bonus
Depending on which membership package you bought when you joined Global Wealth Trade, at the end of each month the company gives you credit you can use to purchase products with.
Titanium and Gold members receive $75 a month whilst Platinum members receive $150. This monthly credit can be either spent or cumulatively saved and put towards a product purchase at a later date.
Incentive Bonuses
In addition to the bonuses and commissions outlined above, Global Wealth Trade also offer several performance bonuses to their members – although they don’t go into the specifics of each bonus. GWT’s additional incentive bonuses are
- a car bonus
- dream getaway bonus
- fast start milestone bonus
Joining Global Wealth Trade
For those looking to join Global Wealth Trade, there are three membership options to choose from:
- Platinum – $3036 cost, includes $2250 credit to be spent on GWT products
- Titanium – $1491 cost, includes $750 credit to be spent on GWT products
- Gold – $821 cost, includes $100 credit to be spent on GWT products
No matter which membership option you come in on, after your first year with the company there is an annual renewal fee of $138.
Conclusion
When you’re talking products that retail for nearly $20,000, you’re going to definitely want a strong sales focused compensation plan, and on that front Global Wealth delivers.
Being luxury goods with a high markup the retail commissions are pretty decent and although $150-$300 for each $3000 in revenue your team makes in sales doesn’t sound like much, when you look at the average cost of Global Wealth Trade’s products, this isn’t too bad at all (assuming your team can actually make the sales).
The residual bonus did sound a bit dubious, in that it contributed to binary commissions at either $75 or $150 per member in your downline, but given that you have to spend this bonus on product purchases, I think of it more like a monthly autoship the company pays for you.
My main concern would be if you could cash out this monthly payment but seeing as it has to be used to purchased products, I see nothing wrong with it.
I do have a slight issue with Global Wealth Trade’s structuring of membership levels. The main difference between the price points appears to be the store credit you get with the company – and the amount you can earn from the compensation plan.
On its own, store credit is great but in this case it appears to be just an incentive to get people to pay more for membership on the promise they can earn more.
I guess Global Wealth Trade boost annual sales figures by forcing all new members to purchase large amounts of product on signup but I don’t see any disadvantage to members if the commissions percentages stayed the same and they reduced the store credit and inturn membership level prices.
That said, I suppose if you’re going to be retailing products that cost well into the thousands, you’re probably going to want to show your potential clients that you yourself can afford at least some of Global Wealth Trade’s products.
As I see it, the biggest challenge with Global Wealth Trade is going to be the marketing of the product line itself. The luxury goods market is very well established and already highly competitive. I note that the company encourage home ‘Tupperware style’ parties and I think this might be a good indication as to how they expect you to draw business.
Internet wise you’re going to be hard pressed against the big guns and whilst the company suggests trade fairs – again, any trade fair for luxury items is likely to be saturated by the big retail players who have far larger advertising budgets then you, the independent Global Wealth Trade, marketer does.
That leaves the circle of people you know, specifically family, friends, associates, etc. I guess if you come from a well off family or live in a fairly affluent area you could make this work but either way you’re going to have to attract people who not only like what Global Wealth Trade has to offer, but also have large amounts of cash to burn.
In this day an age that’s not only a feat in itself, but even with a decent economy is not something everybody is going to be able to achieve.
Think long and hard about joining this one folks, being luxury goods you’re looking at a pretty significant investment before you might actually start to see some returns.
Personally I’d probably want to have at least $5,000-$10,000 saved up before taking the Global Wealth Trade opportunity out for a test drive. Marketing luxury goods in a retail environment is hard enough… let alone trying to get out there and make it on your own.
Update 5th April 2018 – From early 2018 Global Wealth Trade are going by “Opulence Global”.
As at the time of this update, Opulence Global still operates from the Global Wealth Trade website domain.
Interesting niche market. Luxury goods have the “advantage” of not easily comparable to other products for measure of their true value (same for the nutraceutical stuff), which then makes their products “unique” market niche.
Compare to the coffee MLM, you can easily tell that the coffee has plenty of competitors and you know what to pay for coffee. Not so with luxury goods.
Add that to the high margin of luxury goods, and this business is lucrative for the company. How profitable it is to the PARTICIPANTS is the real question.
I mean, who buys luxury goods via a “home party”? They head for their favorite jeweler or boutique shop instead.
Yeah, I’m figuring nobody is forking out a few thousand in product purchases at a home party unless they personally know the Global Wealth Trade member hosting it (close family/friend).
Then there’s only so many products these contacts are goint to purchase off you – what then?
Actually, I see it as even LESS lucrative than that.
Nobody will buy items off a catalog alone, esp. luxury items, unless they have SO MUCH MONEY they don’t care, like the proverbial oil sheikhs.
So the guy who enrolled him- or herself needs to buy something to show off in the home parties, and probably more than a few things. After all, what does $3000 buy off a catalog when the cheapest item is several hundred dollars?
They call it store credit. It’s actually a “business kit”, i.e. the starter kit sold by other MLMs (except more expensive).
In other words, just by signing up the folks, the company already made money (store credits cost nothing). Even after they redeem stuff, the margin’s built-in, so the store simply makes a little less (it still has the profit margin on the item, as the members don’t get a “wholesale price”).
This is without the members making a single sale! But then, you can say this for all MLMs.
And every sale the member makes will make the company more money, plenty to pay any sort of commission to the members.
You better really like the stuff if you join this.
Happy New Year, Oz, and K. Chang. Well, I appreciate your review of this company, as I was looking into it and was seeking an unbiased opinion. Looks decent from the start being in a much different niche than the usual health juice, skin care, and household items market.
Seems like a new company and product line is popping up every 6 months or so based on the latest scientific research, not to mention the exodus of distributors jumping over to the latest and hottest ship where the water appears bluer.
But as you mentioned Oz, the trick to success will be in the marketing of the luxury items to an average income clientelle with cash to spare, and who are looking to purchase something different to add to their jewelry and handbag collection.
Seeing as the company’s been around since 2005, it appears they are producing an item some people (customers) in a few countries are buying without a second thought.
I guess very little to no negative info on the owner of the company might be a good thing. Then again, you never know. As you pointed out, there’s very limited info on his background except maybe for what is posted on the main web site.
Looks like GWT is the lone luxury jewelry company at present. I can remember there being a company called Jewelway International which is now defunct due to FTC scrutiny.
All in all, if they’re able to market the luxury items solely via distributor sales and not via big public marketing and advertizing campaigns like the big dogs do it, and they’re also able to generate a decent profit to keep themselves in business, then there must be a method to the marketing madness, for lack a better term.
Since many folks are hurting money-wise, and the job market is shaky at best, many will no doubt be jumping in to test the entrepreneurship waters for the first time with this company. Those with enough money to start and maintain the business until it’s profitable, of course.
As with all endeavors, time will tell how far this company goes.
Thanks for this great review, Oz.
Regarding the background info on Mesgarlou, I didn’t mean for it to sound like a credibility hit – obviously Mesgarlou has some idea of what he’s doing if GWT has been in business since 2005.
I included the info as Mesgarlou’s official company bio states
but then there’s nothing much about this history, despite Mesgarlou claiming to be involved in MLM since 1990. In 2001 Mesgarlou was on $40,000 a year with 3XS Enterprises… then there’s no info available till 2005 when GWT started up.
You’d think there’d be a little more info on the multi-million dollar businesses this guy claims he was a part of.
One further thought. Asians *do* buy stuff through relatives and friends, including jewelry and other luxury items, but usually it’s something that’s like heirloom quality, as in “they don’t make stuff like that any more” type stuff. Not these catalog stuff.
The main problem I see with this is… these are not consumable commodities, but luxuries, and how much luxury items does one need?
I had a friend who used to sell Quorum personal security products (door knob intruder alarm, personal emergency siren, that sort of stuff) and I told him it’s a deadend as each person only needs one of each item so you’re constantly looking for new clients and your social circle is only so large.
This is no different. The initial joiner likely will not make enough sales to make significant amount of money, so the only way to make money is to recruit other people and hope they will make a few sales themselves, who in turn do the same. Company profits on each sale, while the joiners go nowhere.
I wanted to update what’s been posted here.
I’ve taken a look at the company and its products, and they have products starting below $100 and going up to $112,000.
The FERI MOSH line you’ll have access to as a distributor, however, the FERI line is your focus. Now I should say, I just learned about them this week, but I’m thinking of joining them because I’m quite impressed with what they’re offering.
After being in a presentation, I can tell you that they’ve loaded being a distributor heavily in YOUR favor, not theirs. From Silver through Diamond, each package gets $1000 worth of product to help you start your business, and it’s included not extra.
So for $399 which is their Silver package, you get a website, $1000 worth of product, the catalog division and the home branding party division included. Not bad right? They also put part of your $399 into an inventory account that you can use to buy product for yourself to wear.
If you sold Gucci, you want to be seen wearing Gucci now wouldn’t you?
I was actually very impressed with their compensation package, and the level of support they give their distributors. They’re actually interested in giving them a fighting chance, and according to their stats, they’ve grown 200+% each year for the past 5 years.
They have no direct competition, they apparently pay great, they give you a ton of stuff, and it’s not junk either, I was at their HQ and saw what they sell…nice stuff!
Whether their owner has been in 1 or 10 companies, he does have a showroom packed with jewelery, it’s silver, tungsten, plangston, 19K and 21K, and from what I’ve seen, it’s being bought regularly. Something he’s doing is working great.
@K.Chang – To correct you, jewelery is a consumable product, and it falls under a want not a need….and luxury items are the #1 sought after products out there.
People have a tendency to get what they want, and not always what they need. Jewelery is also classified as an investment because it appreciates in value, not depreciates. If you’re willing to put some effort in, as anyone should be doing in any job with any company, you can do quite well from what I can see.
It’s basically a franchise, which you have to work at to succeed.
No offence intended, you’re entitled to your opinion, but I’m allowed to try and change it with information.
@David — I don’t disagree with you for the most part. I merely wonder just HOW profitable the thing really is. They may SAY the stuff they’re including is “worth” $1000, but is it REALLY?
How much will it appraise for in by a real jewelry appraiser? You won’t know until you get one in your hand. No company is going to GIVE money to you. They want WORK out of you, and in case of MLM-type companies, it means SALES (at least for the legitimate ones).
And in this case, even if you have sold NOTHING, they already got $399 out of you.
Jewelry, being a luxury, is a want, which agrees with what I said. However, nobody is going to buy a piece of jewelry instead of making a mortgage payment or fill up the gas tank or put food on the table.
When economy IMPROVES, people will buy jewelry. I merely wonder how good is the market NOW.
@David
Have you already joined?
Or else you should do some research on your own, sorting out all the bullshit and “marketing talk”?
Tungsten and “plangsten” are not precious metals, even if “plangsten” contains some some unspecified percentage of platinium. “19K” and “21K” should normally be gold. Presenting a piece of jewelry as “21 Carat” or “21K” is misleading and illegal if it’s something else than gold – in most of the world.
I checked a few of the “FERI websites” I found, and none of them had any information about the alloy quality, the platinium to tungsten ratio in percentage.
Jewelry in general is NOT an investment. If you want to cash in your jewelry-investment the usual way is to sell it on ebay. If it’s gold, the usual way is to sell it for scraping to a gold dealer, for a price lower than the metal value.
Mass produced jewelry will usually NOT rise in price. It’s like any other product, the price will be what the market is willing to pay when you try to sell it.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH?
Spend some time doing your own research? And use neutral sources like Wikipedia instead of the company for some of the research – like “tungsten”, “carat”, “jewelry” and “precious metals”. Or check Amazon.com to compare prices?
It’s fair enough – tungsten carbide and “plangsten” are used for jewelry, but the prices they operated with were insane for non-precious metals jewelry. I checked one of the replicated websites that popped up when I googled “plangsten”, and checked the 21K series. Since the website didn’t have any exact information about quality, I guessed it was tungsten or plangsten they showed there. It was absolutely NOT gold, but they used the misleading “21 Carat” as part of the product names.
I’ll guess you’ll be very popular if you start to push cheap Chinese tungsten-jewelry to friends and family, to a price more than 5 times the normal market price.
Hi briefly
> Profit: Sell one decent piece and instant decent profit. Jewellery and luxury goods have very high margins…fact.
>The product range is diverse and growing.
> No need to sell sheds full of product with tiny margins (pills n stuff)sell a few with massive margins.
> Everyone likes the product (gold diamonds silver leather)
> Luxury goods sales online(check your facts) people buy luxury good online.
> You are not forced (ridiculous) to buy a large amount of product. You join and get $1000 retail worth of product in the joining pack and you can join for $699.
> Extremely difficult for any company to copy the products and you don’t have to sell on emotion blackmail… (your fat buy this or you’ll die young with taking this) Plus no issue with law makers about misleading claims… cures this n that.
> Our product can become family treasures, and you wont have an auto ship of coffee or pills building up in your cupboard Think about it!
> Jewellery is consumable product.. how do you think jewellery stores have been around for so many years. There are many many reasons, special events in a persons life when they may consider a stunning gift (not all costly either). count them up and see.
> Almost everyone you meet has some for of jewellery on!!!
Nuff said,
Ignoring the marketing spiel, this was really the only point of interest:
1. members buying products is not retail.
2. $699 sounds like an awful lot of forced product buying to me.
FYI here in Canada average Canadians spend $4000 per year on things that they want and not necessarily need.Even higher in the US.
In GWT the highest inventory account contribution/retail per month for the biggest package is $150 yet average distributor retails $277 per month.So no one is stock pilling because their bonus check depends on it.
In GWT the E/D ratio (earning per distributor ratio) is by far the highest in the world (15 to 20 times) Mr Mesgarlou has produced some of the highest earners in this industry. Highest earner having made over $12 million dollars and he has produced 15 of them.
Not sure where you guys get your information but The world of direct sales know Mr Mesgarlou well.
Heritage of this company dates back to 1800s in manufacturing for the biggest names in the designer industry so therefore GWT became a overnight success since they had the knowledge and experience in manufacturing high end designer goods.
I thought that I share a few facts with you guys.
after 1 day seeking their webside. first, member just buy packet which is so expensive plus monthly invest money-35 to more than 100, and get credit to spend on company product, the question is who better of in this case?
second, nothing clear about member’s duty to get benefit form being a member. thirth, their price for their product is unaceptable (as same as LV, Gucci, chanel, etc). I’m sure noone pay that much for something unsignificant.
if it’s true they have more than 10k member and average monthly investment to this company 50 dollars per member, they will make more than 500k from none-sell >_<. I can conclude BIG DOUBT about this company