SMC - Specialty Merchandising Corporation Review

Many people wonder if SMC "Specialty Merchandising Corporation" is a scam. I tried SMC in the past and I thought I would write this review to share my experience. Perhaps I should say my nightmare! Like you, I was sitting at home late one evening watching the SMC infomercial starring Tom Bosley. I had always wanted to start my own on-line business and had been searching for the right opportunity. When SMC advertised buying products at rock bottom prices, selling them on-line for a huge profit, and having them shipped directly from their warehouse, it sounded like the perfect choice for me. Although I knew nothing about on-line businesses, I thought surely sweet face "Howard Cunningham" from Happy Days wouldn't lie. This must be a good deal! Well, I was so wrong! My lack of investigation cost me over $2,000! Although I can't decide for you if SMC is a scam, I will let you know what to expect. Then you can decide if this program is right for you.

SMC - Specialty Merchandising Corporation Review
 

The SMC Concept

This part of the SMC review covers the methods that they teach you.

The first method involves you calling in or sign up on-line for the $39 startup package. As you've probably already guessed, SMC doesn't make a fortune from your one time fee of $39. It seems the SMC program makes its money by the up-sales of packages which include gift cards, websites, sample products, and merchant accounts from their vendor(s).

When you call SMC to get started for only $39, you'll learn that there is a monthly hosting fee of $29. Next, you'll be assigned a coach. The coach may say to you that you have ordered the basic package with the minimum amount of products and/or the least performing website. Which leads me to SMC's second method. This involves encouraging you to sign up for upgrades. Here's how a couple of these upgrades work...

GIFT CARDS:
These are $10 gift cards that could only be used on your SMC website. You'll be advised to give them away to attract buyers to visit your site. I bought 500 $10 gift cards (worth $5,000). I paid around $2,000. Sounds like a steal, right? Wrong! Here is the reason...

Only a customer with a gift card would be able to purchase from this site. This means you'll need to find 500 people to accept the gift card and hope that a percentage of them would actually use it. If someone heard of your website and did not have a gift card, they could not make a purchase. SMC's gift card website requires all visitors to begin by registering their personal information. A customer may feel uncomfortable doing this if they just wanted to initially browse.

Once customers register, select an item, plug in the gift card number, they will receives a $10 credit. However, the shipping cost is $10. For example, a $15 ceramic elephant purchased with a $10 gift card = $5. Your customer is happy and grateful for the gift card! But when they go to check out, they discover the shipping cost is $10, making that $5 purchase a $15 purchase (the same as the original price). Now your customer may interpret that as a deceptive practice and may exit your SMC site. My church rejected the "free" gift cards for this very reason. To sum it up, I have a box full of unused gift cards right now. I couldn't even give them away! There was no traffic to my site. It was a waste of money.

WEBSITES:
Before I get into the websites, I must tell you this. Be prepared for your phone to ring off the hook! This will not be due to sales, but it will be due to SMC's vendor(s) and perhaps 50+ non affiliates trying to sell you their services to enhance your website. I received tons of these irritating calls daily. They all claim to be affiliated with SMC. If you call SMC about these calls, they will refer you to their "Scam List".

EMerchant Club is affiliated with SMC. EMerchant Club may call you and ask if your sales are increasing with the gift card website. If you are like most, you may find that the gift card website was poorly designed and it wasn't user friendly. Unsurprisingly, you may report having no sales. Here comes the up-sale. Emerchant may offer you a website that does not require gift cards. They may also offer to include Internet advertising by using the search engines. The upgraded price quoted to me was over $600. I refused. Then all of a sudden the price came down to $200. With all of these changes, still there was no traffic to my SMC website.

SMC Overall Review
Should You Join?

If you already have solid leads or you know how to drive traffic to your on-line store, then perhaps you may do well. If you are green to on-line business practices, like I once was, then you may want to reconsider. A wise man once said, we learn either by mistakes or by mentors. I have learned a hard lesson from my past mistakes with SMC. I'm trying to save you from unnecessary headache or worse, loss of money.

Another thing to remember when you are looking for an on-line business. It's important to understand the difference between linear income and residual income when making a decision to start an on-line business. Linear income is when continuous work is required in order for the money to keep coming in. With residual income you do something once and it continues to produce profits for a length of time, or forever. A regular job and SMC both fall under the category of a linear income because you have to keep working if you want the money to keep coming in. Investing in the stock market or using the Internet to leverage your time is a form of residual income.