Would You Choose Lyoness Over DubLi Network?

Lyoness is a shopping loyalty program which gives cash back to members, and offers motivated members a way to earn money on the new members they bring in.

The Products

There are no products- this is a cashback shopping program. It's free to join, and there are membership ranks through which you may move up, if you'd like to earn an income. To do this, you recruit new Members and push as many customers as you can to shop with Lyoness merchants and when they purchase huge amount of gift cards.

The Company

Look at the map of the Lyoness world and you'll see it's mostly in Asia. It's newer to the US…and overall it's just over 10 years old.

The Compensation Plan

We're going to spend a lot of time on the Lyoness Compensation Plan because honestly, there's no product to discuss…it's all about making money on the backs of other people's shopping habits.

Get 4 people to become Lyoness members (which means they make a purchase at a Lyonesse Loyalty Merchant store). Bam, you're in. These people are your Direct Members. The people they enroll are your Indirect Members.

You only get 2 levels.

All the income you earn will be directly tied to how much your Direct and Indirect Members spend when they shop in the Lyoness Loyalty Merchant network.

• You get 1% or 2% cashback on your own shopping.
• Friendship Bonus. 0.5% on Direct and Indirect Members' shopping.

That's what you get as a “Member”. To become an Independent Business Representative and earn commissions, it gets complicated. Lyonesse has what they call and “Accounting Program”. All this means is they keep track of your progress through their system.

Seems like they just like making names for things. There's also the “Accounting Units”, “Accounting Categories”, “Loyalty Account” and so on. It's pretty difficult to extract any real meaning from all this.

Something like this: you accumulate benefits (presumably by shopping and having your Directs/Indirects shop too, or by purchasing Loyalty Merchant Gift Cards in bulk). When you hit a $75 threshold you get an “Accounting Unit”. I guess that's like a gold star. Eventually you get something for it.

When your “Directs” get Accounting units (35 on your left and 35 on your right leg) you get $675. Finally we're talking! But it's not cash. It must be spent by shopping at a Lyoness Loyalty Merchant!

When you get 70 Accounting Units, you get Loyalty Cash. Is that like real cash? Because that's the only kind that counts! Apparently some get Loyalty Credit instead of Loyalty Cash…the ones who earn Accounting Units by purchasing gift cards. There are different categories of Accounting Units one may earn, each worth more than the last.

Looks like if you purchase a huge amount of gift cards, you can start earning money. Kind of like “investing” in the plan for a return.

Now, if you become an Independent Business Representative, you get commission (oh, excuse me: Loyalty Commission!). Your commission depends on how many Accounting Units you have. The higher the Accounting Category you're in, the higher the commission. Purchase more gift cards in bulk, and make more?

I swear, more than any other MLM business opportunity, Lyoness's seems intentionally confusing. What's the purpose of all this complexity?

At this point on the Lyoness Compensation Plan pdf, I'm staring at a chart of commission levels and even though I've read every word so far in the Plan, I have no idea how to achieve these levels or even what they mean.

For example, the first column says “Above and Below” …above and below what? Then the rest of the columns have dollar amounts in them…based on what?

Then they scrap that whole approach and mention an 18.75% bonus on all Loyalty Commissions of your Direct Members and 6.25% on your Indirects. OK now we're getting somewhere…but I'm still not clear how they figure Loyalty Commissions.

The most you'll get out of reading the Lyoness Compensation Plan is that you must enroll 4 Direct Members and they have to be good. Beyond that, it's clear as mud. It gets even worse, as they recalculate the Accounting Categories after a certain point, introduce “Volume Commission” and then finally in the end start jibbering about “Career Levels”.

The take-away: just buy thousands of gift cards, get your downlines to do the same, and you get fabulous returns.

Our Verdict

At first glance this is a business built on loyalty shopping. Think of DubLi Network but without big fat bonuses for getting people to sign up, no monthly membership fees to skim commissions from, and no way to participate in co-branding or selling the program to businesses for even fatter checks. Just buy gift cards like you're investing in the stock market, get your peeps to do the same, and $$ comes your way. So in reality, this is a business built on getting members to invest money.

The upside: it's free to join.