As some of you may know I was a Diamond Creek Candles consultant. I had been a consultant for only about 8 months. I'm going to tell you both the pros and cons of this company through my experience and from what I've heard from other consultants both current and former.
When I started it was April 2009. They offered a 30 day free trial and at that time also offered a free consultant program. Some of the positives of the company was that:
1. There WAS no start up fees or monthly fees unless you chose to upgrade to one of the bigger consultant packages.
2. There is no quotas, not required to keep inventory, no required parties, and the opportunity to take your business as far as you wanted
3. This is probably the best one...They really do have great quality products with great scent choices that other candle companies just didn't offer.
4. The product prices were very reasonable especially when compared to other candle companies.
5. They offer a dropship program for if you wanted to sell through your own website, ebay, etc.
6. They offered whole sale (in the pay plans) for if you wanted to buy bulk quantities for craft shows, etc.
That being said let me tell you why I'm no longer a consultant. In the 8 short months I was a consultant many changes were made. They got rid of the free 30 day trial and the free consultant program. DCC stated the reason for this was that they wanted serious consultants. Though when I was in the free program i was selling just the same as when I upgraded to the gold program. Many of the consultants that had been there longer than me took this change the hardest. They lost a lot of their downlines and commissions. This is coming from consultants I've talked to.
The shipping rates were unfair in my opinion. As a customer or consultant if you ordered only 1 candle you paid $9.80 for shipping and the shipping went up from there. When consultants tried to give suggestions about othere shipping options the owners of DCC didn't want to listen and would delete conversations about it on the forums or group.
They changed the way the wholesale and drop ship sites worked for consultants. IT used to be you could order a case of candles on the wholesale site and pay only about $10 for shipping. Now the consultants have to add them individually and shipping more than doubles that. Cutting into consultant profits siginificantly for shows or if consultants wanted to stock an inventory.
As a consultant it would take my orders a month or more until I received them. They stated it was because they took care of customer orders first and then consultants which would be understandable if my customers weren't asking me "It's been 2 week, 3weeks, whatever and I haven't received my order where is it?"
The customer service from DCC for both consultants and customers was minimal if not non existent at times. One of my best customers put in an order waited 3 weeks and still did not receive her order. She stated she tried to contact them several times via email (because it's the only contact option they give you) and never heard back. I attempted to contact them for her. They got back to me and said "there was a problem with the credit card on her order". Which would have been fine but when were they plannig on telling my customer or me?
I had a large order from my work place. I put it through and did not receive it for over a month. It was my first large order and it made me look terrible as a consultant. I lost a few customers over that. When I'd email about it i got the run around.
I had a home party in the beginning of November and got a decent number of sales from it. Placed the order and waited almost 3 weeks to receive it. I did not receive a peice of the order that was paid for. Some replacment hallogen bulbs I had orderd for my tart warmer. I emailed them about it, they apologized and said the would get them right out. I waited and here it is Jan 23rd and still no hallogen bulbs that i paid for. I emailed them again about it and they said they sent them out via ups in a bubble envelope but if I did not receive them they would send them out again but offered no tracking number and offered no money back.
The last straw? (As if that shouldn't have been enough), I had $45 in commission in my DCC account. I earned this the beginning of Nov from the home party (my home party was Nov 7) and a small sale before that. I had not received the money by the end of Nov so I emailed them. They stated that the money earned then would not be paid until Dec. I waited. I could have really used the money for Christmas expenses. I never saw the money deposited to may account in Dec. I just recently went back and reviewed my account statements back until the middle of Nov. and sure enough the money was never paid to me. I still had no received the payment as of Jan 19. So I emailed them. The response was: We only pay once a month so you should get paid in Jan. I told them the money was from Nov and I should have been paid sooner and they did not get back to me and it is now Jan 23.
I emailed them and asked them to please cancel my account. I was very polite about it especially considering how T'd off I am at this point. The response I got back: "ok it taken care of I have canceled your account" No, why are you cancelling, no we really appreciate your business nothing.
I've talked to several other consultants who tell me they also haven't been paid and a few others have also not received products they ordered.
If you do a search for Diamond Creek Candles on the internet you will find I am not the only unhappy former consultant. In fact I found a whole forum dedicated to it.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/work-at-home/diamond-creek-candle/diamondcreek-candles-diamond-53292.htm
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