Author：砖头 Subject：Great! Now I can figure out what it is now. Thanks!
It's such a comprehensive review of this selling practice that nobody would fail to undertand it by now. Thanks a lot!
But judging from your description, it doesn't seem to be "direct sales." Rather, it's sort of redundant promise (sometimes empty) to sell certain goods in stock. So I think a line taken from a Xinhua news dispatch may shed light on its English version: "State Industrial and Commercial Bureau instructs pyramid-selling companies to change their selling methods and re-register by October 31, 1998."
So it seems to be sort of "pyramid-selling practice." What do you think?
I find that u'r right in using“直销.” I checked with the homepages of two most famous "pyramid-selling" companies in the States, namely, Avon and Amway, they both call their methods "direct selling." But in effect, it's just as described in ur above post, kind of pyramid built upon a large army of gullible consumers-retailers, one cheating another into the selling scheme. As outsiders, we cannot accept them as legitimate "direct-selling methods" as they themselves claim to be. So let's call it "pyramid selling " which captures well the essence of such practices.
Author：歪 Subject：Direct Sales vs. Direct Networking Sales
First of all, direct sales and direct networking sales are different. In common sense, both sales methods are to deal with customers directly. Usually we see a lot of mail order sales, which are typical direct sales not direct networking sales.
The direct networking sales are so called one of "get-rich-quick schema". It's based on a multi-layer network sales system. The sales company has to recruit the numbers in order to build the profitable sub-net. Depending on which direct networking Sales Company you deal with, they have a similar profit-sharing schema. It usually requires every sales agent to recruit or to build 6 to 7 layers of sub-nets, each nodes have 6-10 sub-nodes, and then you can have significant profits! By a simple calculation, those sub-nets usually need to be maintained with hundreds and thousands in number constantly working for you to make money. In most cases, you are just a victim of those people on top of you or their product providers because the product they sell to you are much more expensive than you can buy from open market.
Why are people still being fooled by this kind of schema? Greedy! Most people only look at how much profit they could have if they could build a network. But they never think how difficult it is to build that kind of networks at all. They have always been fooled that their could easily recruit 7 or 10 people, (in most cases those people are their close friends or relatives), and then those 7 or 10 people will do the same thing as they did! They pay money in advance only to become victims first and later on get nothing back.
Think about it. If you can manage a hundred thousand people, you must be very smart. You can get rich anyway. Why from direct networking sales? True, somebody got rich from direct networking sales. Look at them, they have to do a lot of work to constantly recruit victims? Do you want to do that too? The saddest thing is that direct networking sales is nothing new for most people living in the West, they know how such thing works. However in Third World Countries, people are very ignorant about those kind of schemes. Usually those nets grow so fast that, in a short time, it could rip off huge amounts out of people's pockets. What the Chinese Government wants to ban is the direct networking sales not direct sales, and that is a good decision to protect innocent people!
One more thing needs to be clarified, direct sales are not safe either. It requires a good credit system to support this kind of business practice. It requires a law to protect both merchants and buyers. I don't think that China has currently established a good system to support direct sales. Be carefully whenever you engage in direct sales!