Thread: Watkins... a scam or not?

For Watkins part of their pay is based on recruiting, however it seems like for most people in Watkins their money is made selling the actual products. I've used some of their products, I picked them up from WalMart. I do like to cook and have used their vanilla, curry powder and cinnamon. In my personal opinion, the products that I have used were worth the money I spent. My favorite is the curry powder because it's not too terribly spicy but isn't as sweet as some other curry powders.

I also found out that they've ended their contract with WalMart and have been phasing out the selling of their products there.

So what do you think... scam or not? Is there maybe a middle ground on it?

Are you talking about J.R. Watkins? If so, then the first thing I see when googling this is "business opportunity", so it's already not looking so hot. I'll check it out, however.

Watkins products were all my Grandmother would use, so that says a lot about the quality. They are still around, and you can order online. It reminds me of when my older brother was a Fuller Brush salesman, similar approaches, I suppose. But the main qualifier (at least for me) is that they have a legitimate product to sell, quite unlike a lot of the other "opportunities" offered on the net that are solely funded by recruitment.

While I am not a big fan of MLM's, it seems Watkins is a real business have been around since the 1890's. But then, what does one really do to differentiate between a scam and a real network marketing company; it seems both can be scams or not...

Originally Posted by Porkchop Express

Are you talking about J.R. Watkins? If so, then the first thing I see when googling this is "business opportunity", so it's already not looking so hot. I'll check it out, however.

Yep, J.R. Watkins. They do have recruiting available. It kind of reminds me of companies like Tupperware and Avon where they have a legitimate products to sell that aren't extremely overpriced. If you like to cook, a lot of their spices and other cooking extra's are definitely high quality. I have a cheap thing of curry powder in my cupboard as well as the Watkins curry powder. I used the cheap one in a casserole a few days ago and it tasted awful (my husband agreed). If we had never actually used the Watkins curry powder then I doubt we'd know just how awful the cheap one was.

One other thing I've found, I actually have some information on The Summit Group which is a recruiting group based on Watkin's products. For them it seems like their main focus is recruiting. It seems like actual Watkins is more concerned with selling product than recruiting though. They allow their reps to do fairs and farmer markets, however I know a couple of people (through other message boards) that only take a very small inventory to a farmer's market then take orders for products they don't have there and still do decent. Apparently they sit out there with some of their mixes already made so people can eat some of the food and try it out. (Kind of like a Pampered Chef show.) I'm not big on companies that tell people they should carry a big inventory, and I haven't seen much of that with Watkins.