Coffee, it’s one of the most widely recognisable and consumed beverages in the world and as a commodity, green coffee beans are also up there as far as trade goes.

Virtually everybody on the planet knows what coffee is and it’s a product that transcends cultural, economic and geographical boundaries worldwide.To say there’s an existing market for coffee today is an understatement.

Global coffee consumption is second only to water.

That said, on the surface it’s seem like coffee would be the perfect product to combine with a solid MLM business plan and that’s exactly what new MLM startup ‘Javita’ hope to do.

The Javita Coffee Company

The Javita Coffee Company is an offshoot of seven year old MLM company Waiora. Waiora market ‘healthy living’ products and Javita is being touted as their new sister company.

What sister company means is that effectively, the people running Waiora are going to be the same as those involved in Javita. Primarily the CEO and founder of Javita is Stan Cherelstein, who is also the CEO of Waiora.

One interesting little bit of information I stumbled across was that in launching Javita, Waiora seem to be bringing back some old talent.

Donna Valdes left Waiora back in early 2010 to pursue a career with LiveSmart 360, which she infamously claimed at the time would be her ‘last ever network marketing company’.

Then, shortly after receiving her first $57,500 commission check, Valdes quit LiveSmart 360 . A the time she cited that ‘she wasn’t able to be the cheerleader the company needed me to be’.

It appears that Valdes has gone back to Waiora and will be involved in the team behind Javita on a corporate level.

A ‘Donna Valdes’ is currently listed as the domain owner of javanomics.com, which if I’ve done my homework properly is to be the official Javita training and business growth website for its members.

Interestingly Javanomics was registered back in December 2010, just a few months after Valdes quit LiveSmart 360, indicating that Valdes’ involvement in Javita has been for some time now.

Whether or not Javita is the reason Valdes quit LiveSmart 360 remains unknown.

The Javita Product Line

The flagship product of Javita is going to be a one use instant coffe sachet that you add to water. Javita is touting its coffee as a South American 100% Arabica blend infused with ‘herbs and other natural ingredients‘.

The Javita instant coffee will be sold in boxes of 24 one use sachets, which will wholesale for $35 and retail for about $45.50 (as a Javita member, you will sell at the retail price directly over the internet).

At this stage the offering is only coffee but Javita plan to roll out tea and hot chocolate.

Javita also plan to offer gourmet blends which they claim will ‘provide the benefits of increased energy, enhanced mental clarity and alertness, memory, and it may even help you suppress appetite‘.

At the time of publication nothing specific has been released by Javita regarding what their exact product range will be on their June launch date. Given that the instant coffee is making up Javita’s compulsory autoship inventory however, it’s a given the instant coffee sachets will at least be available come Javita’s launch.

There are also future plans to release a Javita line of roasted coffee beans too.

The Javita Compensation Plan

The Javita compensation plan revolves around a unilevel organisation that expands an infinite amount of legs wide and pays out down 15 levels.

As a whole, the Javita compensation plan is a nice balance of sales volume dependent commissions and rewards for members who take the initiative and grow their business.

Despite these growth initiatives being recruitment based, they are however grounded in the fact that Javita members cannot advance unless product is being shifted.

Unfortunately with an autoship requirement for Javita members to stay active and eligible to participate in the compensation plan, this could mean that some members simply bolster their organisation numbers by putting people on autoship and moving on to recruit others.

Not the easiest way to run a MLM business but I imagine it’d be enticing to some less scrupulous network marketers.

Within the Javita compensation plan there are currently nine ways for members to generate an income. For a more indepth analysis and coverage, please refer to my full review of the Javita compensation plan.

Joining the Javita Coffee Company

When looking to join Javita, prospective members are given two options, a $99 and $599 entry level.

Joining Javita at the $99 level is going to be barebones. With Javita’s coffee costing $35 wholesale for a box of 24 one time use instant coffee sachets, I imagine you’d probably only get one box (if you’re lucky, two) with this membership option.

At the $599 joining level, Javita members are obviously going to see a lot more product shipped to them as well as the ability to participate in the full Javita compensation plan.

Aside from the product quantities in each of the joining options, the major difference between the two entry levels is that only the $599 entry level members are able to take part in the Rank Advancement Bonus and accompanying match bonus components of the Javita compensation plan.

Monthly product purchase or sell  requirements (50 BV a month on autoship or 100 BV in product sales) to maintain active status with Javita are the same regardless of which entry level you sign on to.

Conclusion

Whilst there does seem to be potential with the Javita business opportunity, there’s still a few things which should be taken into consideration by anyone looking to join the business.

Apart from my analysis above, I’ve highlighted an additional four concerns I have after having gone over Javita’s marketing material.

The large difference in joining fees

With only two joining options available, it’s hard not to notice the rather large difference in cost ($500!). Aside from extra Javita coffee product, no doubt the $599 joining option will come with some additional training or promotional material not included in the $99 signup option, but it’s still a hard sell.

Well, it would be if it didn’t unlock the compensation plan. Take that out of the equation and I guarantee you nobody would risk the extra $500.

Herein lies the danger of Javita inherently forcing their members to sign up at the $599 level, highlighted by the fact that even if you do join at the $99, you’re given 60 days to upgrade at no additional cost (other then the joining price difference).

By locking parts of the compensation plan out at the $99 level and then touting those components as the ‘star attraction’ of the compensation plan, Javita cleverly ensure that virtually everyone who signs on is going to, one way or another, wind up at the $599 option.

After all, on the chance you do create a succesfull Javita business, why would you want to lock yourself out of $500,000 in bonuses and potentially $250,000 for every member you sponsor?

It’s clearly evident that the only reason the $99 option exists is to try and coax people to upgrade within that 60 day period.

Not a bad thing in itself, but Javita are being a bit misleading in marketing it as a viable entry point into the business. Nobody who is successful in Javita is going to do so by joining at the $99 level. Meaning that really, Javita are forcing you to buy into your success at a higher level whilst offering up the illusion you don’t need to.

The coffee industry is already well established

One of the major selling points being used to market the Javita business opportunity is that coffee ‘is the world’s second most consumed beverage‘ and that ‘coffee beans are the world’s most second traded commodity‘.

Both of these two statements sound good on paper, but as a Javita members, what do they actually mean to you?

For starters, Javita aren’t the first company to realise the potential in coffee. There’s a massive difference between an untapped market and a large one, and whilst coffee definitely falls within the large market category, is it untapped?

Hardly.

As a Javita member you’re competing in a multi billion dollar industry that’s already well established, and has been for years, without you.

Every coffee customer you gain as a Javita member is one another coffee company loses and in a market where most of the players have had decades of a head start infront of you, that’s going to be a tough sell.

Javita on the other hand are going around presenting this as an ‘easy sell’, which it’s anything but.

The fact that coffee is the world’s second most traded commodity means diddly squat to you as a Javita member, and the fact that it’s the world’s second most consumed beverage means that you’re up against a well and truly established market.

Does that mean there’s no room for a new competitor in the industry? Of course not. Just realise that as a Javita member, you’re entering an established industry as a newcomer backed by an unknown brand.

Definitely not as easy as simply approaching people and getting them to try your coffee. And even if it was, this brings me to my next point –

Investing in large amounts of sample product

When we decide if a coffee is good or not, do we neccesarily care where or how it’s made? No.

What do we rely on? Taste.

Trying to sell someone coffee without them actually having tasted the product is a truly futile exercise. As a coffee drinker just ask yourself, ‘would I commit to buying coffee without actually having tried it first?’

Sure, you might take a gamble at the supermarket – but we all know that unless the coffee company is having a promotion, the supermarket itself isn’t going to let you taste test anything.

Meanwhile as an independent member of Javita trying to convince someone Javita coffee is the best tasting in the world, what’s the easiest way to go about this?

Offer them a taste test sample.

Unfortunately as a Javita member, any samples you give out come out of your bottom line. With required minimum monthly orders in place, this doesn’t seem like such a bad thing but keep in mind it’s still coming out of your hip pocket.

Not only that, but if you’re talking to even just five people a day and offering them a sample taste, all of a sudden that 24 box of one time use sachets that cost you $35 isn’t going to last very long.

Add to this that as Javita expand their range you might be tempted to offer up multiple samples to try and find the coffee that’s right for your potential customers – and it’s easy to see how you could start blowing through hundreds of dollars a month in freebie coffee samples.

The cynic in me believes Javita have already taken this into consideration and that’s why so much of their compensation plan is product volume dependent, rather than relying on recruiting.

No incentive not to rely on autoship

You could spend time approaching potential customers trying to retail Javita, or you could just search for that one star potential member who’s going to get you you’re $250,000 matching bonus (or $125,000 bonus if they surpass your rank).

In doing so, you’d be signing up people to Javita and placing them on autoship. Do this enough times I’d imagine and you’re bound to recruit enough members who are trying to make an honest go of the business.

Meanwhile as you place orders to fulfill your search needs and continue recruiting new members and putting them on autoship, you can live comfortable off the Faststart Bonus and residual income efforts of those in your team actually doing the hard yards – biding your time and hoping that one of them goes all the way.

There’s obviously no guarantee this will work and you’re going to probably wind up with a lot of people hating you, but there’s currently no disincentive to do this for people looking to make easy money. Not at least as far as I can see.

If you sign new members up, put them on autoship and wash rinse and repeat… numbers wise I’d say it’s only a matter of time before you find someone who makes it. And if you’re making enough in the interim to get by, then hey – why not?

The above concerns aren’t there to turn anyone off Javita, but rather to highlight what went through my mind as I was researching the business opportunity myself.

As a prospective member, these are issues you too should be considering. Being a pre-launch opportunity there’s currently a lot of hype being published on the internet about how much of a financially ludicrous opportunity Javita will be when it launches.

As with anything that hasn’t launched yet, take your time and weigh up your options. Have a good solid think about the business, what you’ll be up against and what your day to day life within the business is most likely going to involve.

Then, whatever you decide, best of luck to you.

 

Update 5th March 2020 – Last weekend Javita announced it is no longer operating as an MLM company.