Silver Icing Review: Fashion clothing with retail focus [updated]
Silver Icing operates in the fashion MLM niche.
The company was founded in September 2011 as a ‘manufacturing and wholesale business, selling to boutiques across Canada.’
In 2013 the company hit a few bumps in the road and the decision was made to switch to a Direct Sales type business model, selling through independent Stylists across Canada.
Silver Icing implemented a focus on online sales in mid 2014.
Heading up Silver Icing is founder and CEO Christina Marcano (right).
As per Marcano’s Silver Icing corporate bio, she
was tired of commuting 2 hours every day to and from work and wanted to create an opportunity, not only for herself but for women just like her, to find a better balance and make it all work.
Inspired by her love for fashion and as a natural-born entrepreneur, Christina’s vision came to life in the form of the Silver Icing brand.
As far as I can tell this is Marcano’s first MLM venture.
Read on for a full review of Silver Icing’s MLM opportunity.
Silver Icing’s Products
Being a fashion orientated company, Silver Icing’s product range changes over time.
Fashion categories featured on Silver Icing’s website reveal a catalog primarily targeted at women. There is however also a limited men’s and kid’s range too.
Silver Icing’s fashion clothing can be purchased individually, with the company also providing a series of “looks” for inspiration.
Pricing varies depending on what you’re looking at.
Rather than me list a few clothing items here that will inevitably expire, you’re better off browing Silver Icing’s current range on their website.
In addition to fashion Silver Icing also markets a accessories and Kenzley branded makeup. I noted there’s a “Kick Bath” label but no products came up.
Unless I’ve missed it, Silver Icing do not provide any information regarding the origin of their clothing lines.
Silver Icing’s Compensation Plan
Silver Icing affiliates earn a commission on the sale of products to retail customers.
- 25% is paid on Kenley Makeup products
- 20% is paid on “regularly prices, presale and sale items”
- 10% is paid on “final sale items”
To qualify for the bonuses and commissions detailed below, a Silver Icing affiliate must be “active”.
Active qualification requires an affiliate to maintain $250 in personal retail sales each month.
Retail Bonus
For every $200 in retail sales a Silver Icing affiliate makes, they receive a 50% discount on one item the following month.
Note there doesn’t appear to be a limit on the Retail Bonus.
Residual Commissions
Silver Icing pays residual commissions down one level of recruitment (unilevel).
This equates to 5% of retail sales generated by each personally recruited affiliate.
Joining Silver Icing
Silver Icing affiliate membership is $75. This includes a $100 Silver Icing voucher.
Conclusion
In founding Silver Icing, Christina Marcano had a desire to
create … an online social selling company where women of all shapes and sizes could find fashionable pieces that complement their busy lives and make them feel good at the same time.
Fashion is highly subjective and I’m not Silver Icing’s primary demographic. So there’s limited value in my opinion on their clothing line.
As a guy I thought the $129+ asking price for hoodies was a bit much, considering there’s no manufacturing information provided.
Silver Icing’s “BAE” branded men’s watch is also obviously a white label job from China.
You can find similar designs on Alibaba for $20-$30 a pop. Silver Icing’s watch is priced at $139.95 CAD.
Not to boast but I own seven watches. Maybe I’m not Silver Icing’s target demographic in the men’s department either.
And to be fair selling Chinese watches with a massive markup is pretty much the entire fashion watch industry.
Anyway like I said, fashion is subjective and I’m sure there’s items I’ve bought that make no sense to others.
What I’m trying to say is in evaluating Silver Icing’s fashion range, you’re on your own.
What I can praise is Silver Icing’s refreshingly simple compensation plan. It’s almost too simple.
Sign up, pay a fee and sell $250 worth of products to retail customers a month. That’s all you need to max the plan out.
Commissions are tied to retail sales, barely qualifying as MLM down one level of recruitment.
To their credit, Silver Icing really drive home their focus on retail sales;
I understand that there is only one revenue generating event for a Stylist, namely the sale of Silver Icing products to retail customers.
One final thought I’ll leave you with is maybe put some effort into your own marketing.
This video from Silver Icing left me a little perplexed.
I dunno what the situation in Canada is but where I’m from those are trackie-dacks. Widely available and you don’t need to keep them “by the door” for convenience.
But uh yeah, “door pants”. First time I’ve heard that term.
Personally I’d fell a bit weird rocking up to someone’s house and hearing them shuffling around behind the door.
From experience good trackie-dacks are adequately comfortable to lounge around in – but I digress.
Silver Icing is a straight-forward MLM opportunity with a strong retail focus.
The success of the company rests on the quality and pricing of its products, which they could provide some more information on.
Good luck!
Update 24th March 2021 – This is a disappointing update to have to make.
A reader reached out to Silver Icing and discovered that the company provides affiliates with a “customer account”.
Every stylist also has two accounts (linked to the email address they sign up) a stylist account (where your commission is deposited) and a stylist customer account.
So if [a stylist] wants to earn commission and host credits on [their] personal orders, [they] should order as a customer and not under a sample order.
And yes, [their] upline would earn the 5% commission off [their] direct orders (not sample orders).
This creates a significant loophole with respect to retail customer volume.
If an affiliate can self-qualify with $250 spend each month through their own customer account, that opens Silver Icing up to operating as a pyramid scheme.
Not withstanding $250 a month is steep and will most certainly lead to burn out.
It’s disappointing to see this loophole as there’s no need for it. Not to mention it wouldn’t pass the regulatory sniff test with respect to company-wide retail sales volume.
I’d ever argue not disclosing this on Silver Icing’s website and compensation material is intentionally deceptive.
If Silver Icing do want to keep affiliate customer accounts, the simple fix would be to exclude any volume purchased from commission volume requirements.
As a potential Silver Icing affiliate, what you want to find out is how much of the required $250 a month retail spend is being self-funded through the affiliate’s customer account.
If it’s more than $125 a month that affiliate is running their Silver Icing business as a pyramid scheme. And if practiced widely enough, this applies company-wide.
How refreshing! An MLM business that isn’t a scam.
However, it was a bit disturbing to see her drop her door pants on the floor by the door.
She should definitely buy door-pants-rack to keep those handy pants clean, nicely folded – and above all, easy to reach.
Might have to change my name,a relatively honest(at the moment) MLM? Whoddathunk
I’m not saying retail doesn’t exist; but as part of the review, I’d like to know how they track/prove $250 in retail to non-affiliates?
Using the Mary Kay pyramid scheme as an example, an affiliate ORDERS products for the wholesale price of $125, and then she is “automatically credited” as having resold $250 retail sales value of products.
They purposely assume she has resold the product. In reality, that affiliate can have $125 of product ordered sitting in her garage, never to see the light of day again.
This is precisely what happens to most of the affiliates’ orders, as they buy their way into qualification – pushed by upline and Corporate.
I’d like to read detail about how Silver Icing avoids this same issue. If I missed comprehending this in the review, I apologize.
As I understand it Silver Icing are focusing on online sales. They’ve set up their storefront to have events like the limited time offers and presale stuff.
Affiliate orders receive a 20% discount, and as far as I know no commission is paid on these orders – even if the products are resold.
Unless Silver Icing are misrepresenting their compensation plan, commissions are only paid when a retail customer orders something.
Consumers take note. If you’re planning to order a decent amount, you might as well sign up.
For a $75 joining fee, you’ll receive a $100 gift card toward your clothes order. You can also order “samples” at 25% off. At their pricing, it won’t be hard to reach a minimum of $250 to be active in the first month.
I wonder if those purchases made by the new affiliate are MLM commissionable?
Again based on the comp plan the discount is where the commission goes, so nothing further is paid out.
Yep, you’re correct, so I figured there must be another work-around given the fact that it has the MLM scam element. I was slightly off above, but here ya go:
Every Stylist has a built-in “customer account”, and they just order under that. YES, just order as a customer!
This way, they get all the perks, and upline gets her cut. You only have to order $600 in six months to remain a member, but $250 to be active for a particular month.
I’d probably clump my orders in particular months, obviously the first, and another, to take advantage of the discounts. Note: “samples” are final sale. Better to take the 20% with the flexibility.
To me, it just sounds like a marketing strategy, by the company, to entice women to buy their clothes directly by attaching perks to orders and calling people Stylists.
Giving away a $100 gift card makes joining a no-brainer, as you’re already ahead by $25.
If I were going to place an order anyway, why pay retail when I could get a 20% kickback myself, an extra $25, and additional perks – at least for that initial month.
@Oz, I can confirm these practices of Stylists ordering under their “customer accounts”.
To be clear, not another person’s customer account, their OWN “customer account”. What a joke, and sneaky, sneaky.
Sounds like creative MLM-addicts doing their thing and scamming the MLM.
Nope. If you ask me, sneaky by the company to appear more compliant. The company is well aware of Stylists using their “customer account”. And again, it’s a feature right there on your account when you sign up.
This, of course, brings us back to the ever present, MLM is inherently flawed. When everyone can be recruited, get a discount, and potentially make a profit, why be a retail paying customer?
Paying full retail for any MLM product is for idiots. Most people aren’t idiots, so MLMers all default to recruiting.
From the MLM company’s perspective, retail customers stop the chain. They much prefer recruiting and self-ordering affiliates. They are the real customers for the company.
Where’s this from?
Affiliates can set up customer accounts in any MLM (wife/husband/kids/relative/cat/dog etc.) but you don’t usually see it baked into the comp plan.
Review updated with disappointing news Silver Icing has a retail volume loophole.
You have one major error in your review and that is it is NOT an MLM company. It is a Direct Sales company. HUGE DIFFERENCE.
We are not tiered so we’re not driven to focus on building a “team”. We sign up people if they choose to do so. And that’s as far as it goes. We do not earn commission if a team member signs someone below them.
So kindly post a retraction or better yet, get your facts directly from the CEO Christina Marcano herself. Shame on you for making assumptions.
You get paid on your sales and that of your immediate downline. Silver Icing is a very shallow MLM company compensation wise but it’s still an MLM company.