Re: Does anyone have any experience with SMC?

I've replied to these before and I will again, I'm sure. I sell quite a bit of SMC products. Fewer now than in the past because they are moving from the figurines and such to home decor type items. Where I was ordering a couple times a month in 2004, it's more like once every couple of months now.

I had a kiosk in a mall in an area of 300,000+ real close and about 1.5 million in the general metro area. The mall recently remodeled and I'm now in a cart, since they did away with kiosks. Frankly, I don;t know how long I'll stay, it's sort of month to month right now. Through November and December I had 3 carts, one with the SMC / fragrances that I always sell, one with mist fountains and electric candle warmers and wickless candles to go with them and a third cart selling Perfect Petzzz, the dogs and cats that "breathe."

I started with nothing but SMC and for a year, or so did well, selling dragons and wizards (hardly any still in the line), birdhouses (many now discontinued) and figurines and dreamcatchers (now a naughty word.) But, times have changed with SMC and the mall won't let me change my products. I can get a whole "new" cart with a new "theme", but can't start selling pillows instead of oil burners.

As far as SMC itself is concerned, I am the unpaid, volunteer moderator of their "member" forum. As of today there are over 11,000 members. Some come and bitch, some come to help others. There are some real winners, doing hundreds of thousands of bucks a year and some just squeaking by. Like any other opportunity, it depends on you. While every product line has some stuff they wish they had never bought, for the most part the products are fairly priced and of good quality.

As far as the company itself, I'll tell two stories. I think I've told them both here before, but here goes.

In 2003 the Smithsonian Institution ordered 30 some SMC birdhouses from my website. They were using them to decorate what is more or less considered the national Christmas tree. They ordered early and the birdhouses sat around their warehouse for some time. When they were ready to get on the projuect they found that several were missing. They agreed they had signed for them all, it wasn't a case of saying they were shorted, just lost. They asked if I could rush them 3 more.

I contacted my rep at SMC and they not only sent three out second day, but sent them free and told me if I'd have told them about the deal they would have donated them all. Of course, I would not have made anything on that deal, so I was glad I handled it the way I did.

The next Christmas season, just as things began to get busy around Black Friday, they screwed up and shipped my order for about $ 2000 twice. I ended up with a double load of freight the same day. The UPS lady was cussin'. Anyhow, when I told SMC about the deal, and they had billed my debit card twice, they issued credit for one of the orders, told me to keep the second shipment, sell it during Christmas and return what I hadn't sold after the first of the year - at their expense. Just like a consignment.

That really worked well, as I recall it was less than $ 300 that actually went back.

So, they are a good company. They do have some real big sellers. I'm not one, I average about $ 20,000 a year from them, but it's going down quickly. My business has moved more to mist fountains and fragrance oils. Neither come from SMC.

Back to can you make money with them? You sure can. And you can also lose your cash. Just as you can with any investment. It's up to you.