Miessence Review: Certified organic products & autoship
Miessence as a product range was launched in 1997, with the MLM side of the business launched through the Organic & Natural Enterprises Group in 2003.
When it first launched, Miessence was known as “One Group”.
The company is based out of Queensland, Australia, with three Directors listed on the Miessence website; Narelle Chenery, Colin Chenery and Alf Orpen (right).
Founders Narelle and Colin Chenery, Alf Orpen and John Hunter established the Organic & Natural Enterprises Group in 2003 to develop a comprehensive range of organic home, health and beauty products under the Miessence name.
Perusal of Narelle and Colin Chenery’s LinkedIn profiles suggest that Miessence was their first venture into MLM.
Alf Orpen meanwhile is heavily involved in organics, particularly organic farming.
On the regulatory and legal side of things, Miessence appear to be in the all-clear – which is impressive for a fifteen year old MLM company.
Read on for a full review of the Miessence MLM business opportunity.
The Miessence Product Line
Miessence is the world’s first extensive range of internationally certified organic skin, hair, body, cosmetic, oral and nutritional products.
Miessence have a large product range offering on their website, spanning personal care (skin, hair, oral and body), cosmetics, superfoods and home care.
There are far too many Miessence products to cover individually (the skincare range alone has 30 products), but full retail pricing and product descriptions are available on the Miessence website.
To give you an idea of what’s on offer, I’ve provided the cheapest and most expensive items from each product category niche below:
- skincare cheapest – fan brush for $12.80
- skincare most expensive – Facial Spa Pack for $224.95
- haircare cheapest – Shine Herbal Hair Conditioner trial size (40ml) for $6.95
- haircare most expensive – Healthy Hair Pack for $121.85
- bodycare cheapest – Mint toothpaste trial size (50g) for $3.45
- bodycare most expensive – Darling Salt Glow Body Scrub (3 pack) for $108.95
- cosmetics cheapest – Translucent Foundation Sachet Pack for $1.50
- cosmetics most expensive – Translucent Foundation (porcelain, vanilla and honey) for $68.90
- superfoods cheapest – Miessence Fulvic Acids for $49.95
- superfoods most expensive – Superfoods Pack for $317.50
- home care cheapest – MiEnviron 250ml bottle and trigger spray for $5.75
- home care most expensive – Household Cleaning Pack- BioPure Conc & MiEnv 250ml for $20.65
The Miessence Compensation Plan
The Miessence compensation plan pays affiliates retail commissions, with residuals paid out monthly through a unilevel compensation structure.
Additional performance-based bonuses are also available.
Commission Qualification
In order to qualify for commissions, all Miessence affiliates must generate 75 PV a month.
PV stands for Personal Volume and is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s own orders and those of their retail customers.
Miessence Affiliate Ranks
There are ten affiliate ranks within the Miessence compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Associate – sign up as a Miessence affiliate and maintain 75 PV a month
- Bronze Associate – maintain 75 PV a month and at least two qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers and have a total downline monthly volume of 1000 GV
- Silver Associate – maintain 75 PV a month and at least three qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers and have a total downline monthly volume of 3000 GV
- Gold Associate – maintain 75 PV a month and at least five qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers and have a total downline monthly volume of 6000 GV
- Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least eight qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least two must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 10,000 GV
- Bronze Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least eleven qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least three must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 25,000 GV
- Silver Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least fourteen qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least four must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 50,000 GV
- Gold Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least seventeen qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least five must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 150,000 GV
- Platinum Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least twenty qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least six must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 350,000 GV
- Diamond Executive – maintain 75 PV a month and at least twenty-five qualified recruited affiliates or retail customers (at least seven must be Bronze ranked affiliates) and have a total downline monthly volume of 750,000 GV
Retail Commissions
Commissions are paid on all Miessence products ordered by retail customers.
Each Miessence product is assigned a “Bonus Allocation”, which is paid out when the product is sold to a retail customer.
Miessence don’t disclose Bonus Allocation amounts in their compensation plan, but presumably it is equal to or close to the difference between retail and wholesale pricing.
A 100% commission is paid out on orders made by a retail customer within 30 days of their first order, with 17% paid on every subsequent order thereafter.
Builder’s Bonus
The Builder’s Bonus is paid out on product orders made by newly recruited affiliates.
The Builder’s Bonus pays out down three levels of recruitment as follows:
- Associate – 50% on level 1 (personally recruited affiliates)
- Bronze Associate – 50% on level 1 and 30% on level 2
- Silver Associate or higher – 50% on level 1, 30% on level 2 and 20% on level 3
The above percentages are paid out on the BV of recruited affiliate orders.
Note that only orders made within a newly recruited affiliates first 30 days with Miessence are paid out via the Builder’s Bonus.
Recruitment Commissions
A $300 recruitment commission is paid out when a Miessence affiliate recruits three affiliates who sign up with a minimum 300 BV order.
The three affiliates must be recruited within the same calendar month, with the $300 paid out for every three 300 BV order affiliates recruited.
Sponsor Bonus
The Sponsor Bonus is a 5% commission bonus on orders made by retail customers and personally recruited affiliates.
In order to qualify for the Sponsor Bonus, a Miessence affiliate must be on a minimum 75 PV monthly autoship order.
Residual Commissions
Residual commissions in Miessence are paid out after an affiliates first 30 days with the company.
The commissions themselves are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure, that runs a through ten levels of recruitment.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Miessence cap payable unilevel levels at ten, with commissions paid out as a percentage of the BV generated by an affiliate’s unilevel team.
How much of a percentage is paid out is determined by an affiliate’s rank and what level of the unilevel team sales volume is generated:
- Associate – 17% on level 1
- Bronze Associate – 17% on level 1 and 11% on level 2
- Silver Associate – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2 and 6% on level 3
- Gold Associate – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3 and 4% on level 4
- Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4 and 3% on level 5
- Bronze Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4, 3% on level 5 and 2% on level 6
- Silver Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4, 3% on level 5 and 2% on levels 6 and 7
- Gold Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4, 3% on level 5, 2% on levels 6 and 7 and 1% on level 8
- Platinum Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4, 3% on level 5, 2% on levels 6 and 7 and 1% on levels 8 and 9
- Diamond Executive – 17% on level 1, 11% on level 2, 6% on level 3, 4% on level 4, 3% on level 5, 2% on levels 6 and 7 and 1% on levels 8 to 10
Loyalty Bonus
The Loyalty Bonus pays Miessence affiliates based on how many retail customers and recruited affiliates they have on a minimum 75 BV a month autoship.
An affiliate is paid $75 AUD ($54.91 USD) for having three recruited affiliates or retail customers on a 75 BV minimum monthly autoship, with $50 AUD ($36.61 USD) paid out for each subsequent group of three.
An affiliate is paid $140 AUD for having three recruited affiliates or retail customers on a 75 BV minimum monthly autoship, but who have also made a minimum 140 BV order that month (can be the autoship order).
Each subsequent group of three affiliates who satisfy the 140 BV order condition generates an additional $85 AUD commission.
Note that for the $75 AUD bonus, an Miessence affiliate must be themselves on a minimum 75 PV monthly autoship order.
For the $140 AUD bonus an affiliate must be on a minimum 75 PV monthly autoship order, but also have made at least one 140 BV order that month (can be the autoship order).
Executive Pool
The Miessence Executive Pool is made up of breakage from Bonus Allocation amounts not paid out via the commissions and bonuses detailed above.
Executive and above ranked affiliates qualify for shares in the Executive Pool as follows:
- Executive – 1 share
- Bronze Executive – 3 shares
- Silver Executive – 6 shares
- Gold Executive – 9 shares
- Platinum Executive – 12 shares
- Diamond Executive – 16 shares
Joining Miessence
Basic affiliate membership with Miessence is $59.95 AUD.
An affiliate can also optionally sign up with either a Fast Start pack for $307.69 AUD or Basic Start pack for $109.76
Basic Miessence affiliate membership does not qualify an affiliate for MLM commissions, signing up with a Fast or Basic Start Pack does (for 1 month).
Conclusion
The requirement that all Miessence affiliates maintain 75 PV a month and the 75 PV a month minimum autoship qualification for the Sponsor and Loyalty Bonuses, lends itself to affiliate autoship recruitment.
Miessence conveniently package this 75 PV a month with either a Fast or Basic Start Pack which, due to the 75 PV a month commission qualification, raises the question of whether an affiliate is purchasing the pack because of the products or because they want to be commission qualified.
Not helping is marketing like this, taken directly from the Miessence compensation plan:
Join with a Fast Start order to qualify for the Sponsor Bonus immediately.
An affiliate’s own order of product should generate sales volume, but at the same time commission qualification shouldn’t be used as a selling point. Otherwise you run the risk of turning your entire product catalog into an affiliate recruitment tool.
The clear danger with Miessence’s compensation plan is that the company runs the risk of being made up of affiliates on autoship, with little to no retail sales activity taking place.
Requiring affiliates to meet the 75 PV a month commission qualification through retail sales orders only would alleviate this concern, however as it stands retail sales can be ignored completely.
All prospective Miessence affiliates would be advised to check with their upline as to
On the product side of things, Miessence appear to have a robust organic offering.
Miessence claim to only carry products that are either “certified organic” or “made with organic certified ingredients”.
Miessence certified organic products contain more than 95% certified organic ingredients.
The remaining small percentage (up to 5%) must be naturally produced plant or mineral products with strict processing criteria, (e.g. absolutely no GMOs or synthetic chemicals).
Miessence organic cosmetic products contain more than 70% certified organic ingredients.
The remaining percentage (up to 30%) must be naturally produced plant or mineral products with strict processing criteria, (e.g. absolutely no GMOs or synthetic chemicals) or products of green chemistry.
These range of products stand in a class of their own. They are independently certified to international food grade standards by some of the world’s most respected organic certifying organisations – Australian Certified Organic (ACO), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and IFOAM (Europe).
Prices for Miessence’s entire product range are readily available on their website, with comparison (both local and online) encouraged to suss out potential marketing viability.
Speaking of marketing viability, the Miessence Wikipedia entry states:
Miessence products are sold direct to the consumer via their website, in retail stores in Australia and New Zealand as well as some countries that have exclusive distributors.
To what extent these competing marketing channels might have on your Miessence business as an independent affiliate depends on how aggressively Miessence market their products in your area.
I’d double-check to what extent Miessence might be marketing in your area, as the last thing you want as an independent affiliate is to have to go up against Miessence itself.
Autoship recruitment and corporate retail competition aside, Miessence otherwise offer up a pretty strong MLM opportunity. The organic product niche is gaining wider and wider mainstream appeal, especially in areas where chemical and environmental pollution are of concern.
If your potential upline isn’t relying on affiliate autoship orders, Miessence don’t have a corporate marketing presence in your area and you think you can market true organic certified products, Miessence might just be the MLM company you’ve been looking for.
Good luck!
Having worked with a couple other MLM companies to varying extents over the years, before finding Miessence in 2010 and becoming a happy customer then rep myself, I have greatly appreciated Miessence’s strong focus on education and truth in marketing, product sales over recruiting, and commitment to a zero hype and sustainable approach to the MLM model.
I’d rather have slower, more sustainable business growth based on genuine customers than the stereotypical flash and crash growth of most MLM companies where everyone is only a customer because they’ve been suckered into thinking they’ll make scads of money, even though it’s mathematically impossible for everyone to make it to the top.
This company’s commitment to truth both in their product claims and business claims, plus their mission driven purpose, the great network of support within the global Miessence community, and the frequent testimonials I get from happy customers (real customers with no business interest in the company) around the world, has made Miessence truly a joy to work with these past 6 years.
I look forward to growing further with them. 🙂
Hi Lacey, care to comment on your autoship PV vs. retail PV each month?
I have not worked with any other MLM companies and have been with Miessence since 2005. I enrolled as a rep with a Fast Start and never looked back.
Much like what Lacey mentioned above the company culture is one that is not hype and flash but more focused on the mission of bring organic, sustainable business to the MLM space.
I’m here because of the products and the company culture. In some respects I would say that Miessence is the MLM company for people who do not like MLM companies..
I do want to comment on the autoship PV vs retail PV issue you have mentioned.
Miessence is a customer focused company and based on my own personal experience as a rep for over 11 years and also one of the highest ranked reps in North America, there are more reps bringing in customers as their primary focus before they do a lot of recruiting of affiliates.
Even with this requirement of the personal 75PV order you are also paid off customers that are autoship so the Loyalty bonus is paid out for both reps and customers on a min 75PV monthly autoship, not just on affiliates.
They all count toward the Loyalty Bonus. Also, if you go on Autoship as a customer and or affiliate you get the best pricing and shipping for your products.
This makes sense to me. The discount structure is the same for customers as it is for reps (affiliates) which actually encourages those who really are not here to build a business to buy as a customer.
I believe that one of the main reasons for the required order is to keep people using the products that the are promoting, also it provides a stable prediction of maintaining inventory for the products.
Miessence products are manufactured fresh every 30 days, this is not common across the industry. These are live, vital products that are the freshest and most potent they can be when the customer / affiliate receives them. These products have not been sitting on a warehouse shelf for 12 – 24 months before you get them.
Also, I would have to say that if you are with a company and you are not using the products why would you be there?
If you replace your current products and use the miessence products in their place, it’s very easy to use 75PV in products a month.
I believe the most successful people here are those that are passionate about the products and use them themselves.
Why do they advertise affiliate autoship for commission qualification then? Shouldn’t it be “sell 75 PV of our products to retail customers to qualify!” or some such?
This encourages an affiliate to autoship order for commission qualification, which invariably leads them to focus on recruiting other affiliates who do the same.
When you let affiliates qualify for commissions on their own autoship order, the above takes a backseat. First and foremost if an affiliate has a square 75PV a month autoship order, it’s likely primarily only for commission qualification.
This ambiguity is precisely why you don’t let affiliates autoship qualify for commissions.
I guess I don’t necessarily agree because this is not what I see at Miessence… people look for customers before they find reps, this is pretty much standard here… you don’t have to have reps on AS to earn the loyalty bonus, you can earn that from customers on autoship.
This is true for some people ^^, yes, but I would say not for the majority of people here… almost with out hesitation people come here for the products, and then they think about the business second.
What I see after 11 years is that most reps that come here and stay, even without building a business keep their autoship turned on because they came here for the products first and the business second. And they are just customers really, and not acting like affiliates. So, why can’t an affiliate also be a customer?
Again, if you sell the products as a business, why would you not also want to use them? That does not make sense to me personally.
Unfortunately that’s pseudo-compliance with Miessence’s compensation plan the way it is.
A simple removal of affiliate autoship to qualify for commissions would change that, requiring each Miessence affiliate to make 75 PV a month in retail sales to qualify.
As per your assertion “people look for customers before they find reps”, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Until then, the compliance issue of affiliate autoship recruitment will linger.
They can, but in MLM you need genuine retail sales to prove you’re not running an affiliate autoship scheme (commissions tied to recruitment, defacto via ongoing residuals and/or direct).
Miessence pay a $300 direct recruitment commission if three affiliates are recruited who spend 300 BV when they sign up, so we’re already in murky territory.
I am still trying to grasp in this day and age.
Why would anyone be paying for over priced mlm products just to say they are better than anything else in the marketplace?
What really confuses me is these long drawn out comp plans you need a degree to understand.
Yet what astounds me the most is you can’t talk to 3 or 4 people involved in these things and they will do the same speech of how they would just buy the products month after month even with out the comp plan.
Fact is who goes around buying over priced products without trying to offset the cost by getting others to pay for it?
Thats the thing about these mlm plans schemes or what ever you want to call them. Most can’t justify spending this type of money monthly without the comp plan.
You get tricked into autoship one way or the other. You are either paying it or your downline is.
Hi Terrence,
I totally understand what you’re saying. And I also agree about the comp plans… it took me 3 years to figure out the Miessence comp plan we had when I first joined them in 2005.
I only know about Miessence because I have not seen another MLM product I would personally buy.
You’re right a lot of MLM products are over priced.
I found Miessence 11 years ago, when I was educating myself about organic. I was already eating organic and this was the next “evolution” of my transition to going organic.
You may or may not care about organic but for people that do care about organic, there was nothing else in the market place in 2005 that was CERTIFIED organic to food standard.
That is really the main “claim” that miessence has, they were the first company to bring a certified organic product like this to market.
Today there are 100s of “organic” products in the market place, but not a lot of certified organic to food standard products in the marketplace still.
Lots of companies deceive consumers by using the word “organic” on their label but when you look at the ingredients lists you see a slew of synthetic chemicals mixed together with a few organic ingredients.
If I’m going to spend money on an organic product I want it to be truly organic, not deceptively organic.
That’s why I started purchasing Miessence, because it was the only product I could find back in 2005 that was certified organic to food standards.
Now there are many more certified organic skin care lines in the market, and when you start to compare pricing and I mean compare pricing to other CERTIFIED organic skin and body care products you are going to see that Miessence is not too far off from traditional retail prices and in some instances it’s less expensive then other Certified organic lines in traditional retail settings.
When you compare prices you have to look at the amount that’s in the bottles as well as the ingredients lists and the certification standard.
In the US there is only one food standard certification for organic products and that’s the USDA standard. In Australia, where Miessence is manufactured, there is only one food standard for organic that is ACO. Both of these 3rd party standards are very similar in what’s required to meet them.
Then there are a slew of other cosmetic organic standards but these all allow various synthetic chemicals that would not be allowed in a food standard product.
You can argue the merit of buying organic but it’s a fact that organic products cost more than non-organic products. Third party certification is a big hurdle to meet, and it costs $$ to have your products certified organic.
Every ingredient in your product must have a paper trail back to it’s see origin, all of this must be kept on file at your manufacturing plant… your plant must also be certified organic… there is independent third party verification from seed to bottling that your products are really what they say they are and really have the ingredients in them that are listed on the label.
There are more and more “fake” organic products coming into the marketplace because of the increasing consumer demand for organic products. The ONLY way to know if your product is truly organic is to see a 3rd party certification on the label, either USDA or ACO.
Generally the ingredients in organic products cost from 3 to 300 times what conventional synthetic chemical ingredients cost. If you are a buying of organic food you will know what I’m talking about here.
I realize not everyone cares about organic and so for those people Miessence is not their product line, it’s that simple.
Hi OZ,
Yes I get what you’re saying now. Even though my experience here has shown me that reps at Miessence focus on customers over recruiting other reps, but there would be no way for other people to know this with out seeing the company stats or records.
Thanks for the feedback.
Do the reps ship the products out to their customers and thus need your own website to do this? Or can you add your name on miessence domain name, get customers to order off their website and the company send it direct to customers.
How does this work? I am very interested in this business opportunity.
As a Miessence affiliate you’ll get a replicated storefront (hosted on the Miessence domain) you can send customers to.