Network marketing is a retail channel of distributors who sell goods or services. Most network marketing companies use direct selling to channel their products rather than a typically retail store or business. Direct selling is personal contact with one individual to another. The advantage of network marketing is that beyond selling a product the distributors also sign up other distributors or business builders. Each distributor uses leverage to collect a small percentage of the distributors below them up to a certain level. This is how network marketing got it’s parallel name of multi level marketing.

Network marketing is convenient in that many of the major risks are taken up by the parent company. Many times the parent company will handle all the orders, the shipping, the product research, the branding, major meetings, and the accounting and payroll. The distributors then can focus on building their business without the headache of all the ins and outs of creating a business.

Initial investment into the company is not always mandatory. Sometimes distributors can sign up for free but must by a certain amount of product in order to be considered a distributor opposed to a consumer. Purchases on a monthly basis of a couple hundred dollars are usually the costs of the distributor. Then the distributor is expected to find a certain number of other distributors in order to increase pay.

Network marketing is huge industry and is in over 100 different countries. The DSA found that over 50% of Americans who are adults have purchased products from a network marketer at one point in their lives. The influence is vast, and it is still growing.