If you’re into sparkly jewelry and like bling, you may have come across Touchstone Crystal. This company sells Swarovski crystal jewelry and claims to trace its history for over 120 years due to its affiliation with Swarovski Crystal; however, the company itself, which functions as a subsidiary of Swarovski, is only eight years old.
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What is Touchstone Crystal about?
In brief, Touchstone Crystal is a direct sales multilevel marketing (MLM) company. As such, it sells its merchandise directly to independent consultants at wholesale; those consultants then price their items at a set retail value and sell them to consumers.
Consultants make a profit on the price difference of their sold inventory. They also make a commission from the sales of people they recruit as independent consultants.
Touchstone Crystal offers some rather unique and dazzling pieces. Here is a small sampling of the company’s offerings:
You can purchase Touchstone Crystal by going to its website and selecting your desired products. From there, you are directed to get in touch with your local consultant in order to finish the purchase.
So, unless you deal with a consultant, you cannot buy the jewelry outright.
Of course, you could choose to become a consultant yourself, which would enable you to not only purchase Touchstone Jewelry at wholesale price but to also make a profit by selling it to others.
The Touchstone Crystal consultant process
To become a consultant with Touchstone Crystal, you first need to purchase one of these two kits:
Basic $139 Starter Kit
Enhanced $299 Starter Kit
The Basic and Enhanced Starter Kits come with 8 and 13 jewels respectively, as well as business tools. If you wish to set up a website, that costs an extra $9.99/month.
Once you have your kit purchased, Touchstone Crystal emphasizes that you sell to others using the home party model. The company estimates that you will make about $200 in profit from each party you host. Here is a more detailed breakdown of the process:
So, if you are just a starting consultant, you should be hosting one party per week, during which you will sell $700 worth of merchandise and pocket $210 for yourself. At the end of the month, you should have sold $2,800 worth of merchandise and earned $840 for yourself.
This also suggests that your wholesale costs on the jewelry you purchase are roughly 70% of retail cost.
You can also make additional money by recruiting others into your team. Touchstone Crystal provides the following information on compensation from your downline:
What if you can’t decide on becoming a consultant, or just want to snag some of the jewelry pieces at a lower cost? To this end, you can host a party for a current consultant and just invite your own family members and friends. The rewards are shown below and include 30% of sales coming back to you in free product.
While this all sounds great in theory, there are different pros and cons with being a Touchstone Crystal consultant.
Pros:
Unique and beautiful jewelry– Touchstone Crystal definitely offers some good-looking pieces that sparkle and shine. Most people are well-aware of the Swarovski name and its quality.
Evergreen product– Jewelry is considered to be an evergreen product, meaning that most people can be persuaded to buy more of it, even if they already own other jewelry.
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Cons:
Expensive product– As this example shows, Touchstone Crystal pieces aren’t cheap.
This may pose an issue for some customers who can’t splurge on items that cost $100 or more. In fairness, the company does offer many of its jewelry pieces at $50 or below. Still, this isn’t $5 Paparazzi jewelry.
Warm market emphasis– Touchstone Crystal emphasizes that you sell to your warm market; i.e., family and friends. That might work for a while, but inevitably, your warm market will dry up. This is especially true if someone has recently spent $100-$150 on jewelry- it’s doubtful that the person will return and make another large purchase anytime soon.
Unclear compensation plan– The Touchstone Crystal website does not offer a full compensation plan breakdown, such as what exactly consultants earn at each level. Also missing is a detailed breakdown of downline earnings and what percentage is kicked up the recruiting consultant.
You must buy product– If you’re going to be hosting parties all the time, you’ll need something to showcase besides those Starter Kit pieces. As a result, you’ll be buying Touchstone Crystal jewelry before you sell it to anyone else. Even when priced at 70% retail, this is not cheap jewelry. And if your purchased pieces don’t sell, you’re out of the money you paid for them.
eBay– Why should your customers buy a $100 necklace from you when they can easily purchase the same necklace on eBay for half (or even less) the cost? Yes, eBay currently offers 174 auctions for various Touchstone Crystal jewelry pieces, and almost all of these pieces are new and priced at discount. More than likely, the pieces are being sold by consultants who have given up on the business and are just trying to recoup some of their losses.
Touchstone Crystal: Good jewelry, not-so-good business
Touchstone Crystal offers impressive jewelry that is sure to catch attention from others due to its sparkle and beauty. However, the business model has several insurmountable problems, including product expense, warm market emphasis, and an undefined compensation breakdown. If you really like the jewelry line, you’re better off hosting one party and getting a product discount. As far as the Touchstone Crystal business model is concerned, you’re better off looking elsewhere.
Have you bought or sold Touchstone Crystal before? Please let us know your experiences in the comments below.
I sold jewelry for Touchstone for a few months. I spent far more than I ever earned. I believe that this is really only a good business if you have wealthy friends.
Being a consultant for the last 2 years, I just want to provide a little more info/clarify a few things.
Firstly, you are not required to purchase any jewelry for your display. In addition to the jewelry you in your starter kit, you are both the consultant and host of your first launch party. That means that you not only earn all of the commission from those sales but you also earn all of the host rewards so you are adding to your jewelry right away. The career plan also offers new consultants ways to keep earning jewelry in their first few months of business. In fact, new and seasoned consultants have many oppurtunites to keep growing their displays.
Second, we are not encouraged to sell to our friends and family. Typically, your first few parties may include friends and family as you are just getting going but it is not their job to keep us in business.
Lastly, I earn a great income through Touchstone. The compensation plan is generous and very easy to understand. This company has been wonderful for me and my family.
I’d like to also add that as consultants we do not buy our products wholesale and resell them at retail. We do not keep an inventory. Orders are placed online by the consultant and shipped directly to the customer from Touchstone.
I’m interested in starting but would like to know how to get parties going without starting with friends and family. I’ve just moved to a new area and can’t tap into many people I know here. Would like to know where I can find these people without going broke to get started.