Hello, and a very warm welcome to my Travelling Vineyard Review. Can you think of many people that make a living out of wine tasting?
I have to say this is the first multilevel marketing wine company I have ever come across after reviewing quite a few of them in the beauty and supplement niches.
Would selling and tasting different wines at home parties be an ideal job for you?
What does it take to get started with this MLM?
Cost: Between $49 and $179 for a kit plus $15.95 personal volume every single month.
That is a very surprisingly low start-up cost! So far so good 🙂
This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn money from products and services you purchase through my links.
None of the links is connected to Travelling Vineyard.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated or associated with Travelling Vineyard. If you do join it I will not be compensated in any way.
Let’s dive in and find out if this business is for you or not?
Travelling Vineyard Overview
Company Name: Traveling Vineyard
Website: www.travelingvineyard.com
Founder: Rick Libby
Product Type: Multi-Level Marketing Wine Company
Price: $49 To $179 Worth Of Business Kits + $15.95 Personal Volume Every Month To Keep The Account Active
Is It Recommended? Yes and No.
At Travelling Vineyard you don’t just taste and sell wine. You learn all about it as well.
What foods are good accompaniments to the chosen wine? (called Sommology)
Learn how to be a wine guide!
Good for people who have previous experience with MLMs and also like to drink wine.
Not good for people who don’t like wine cannot sell and recruit.
More about the opportunity will be revealed as we progress through the review.
About Richard Libby The CEO Of Travelling Vineyard
Richard Libby is the CEO of the MLM company called Travelling Vineyard he took over the ailing business in November 2010.
His business experience includes:
Direct Marketing
Direct Selling Industry
Sales Management
Direct Response
Training
Hospitality Industry
New Channel Development
Leisure Travel Tourism
Wine Industry
He was introduced to the concept when he attended a Pampered Chef event, which is another MLM company that sells kitchen equipment and tools.
For the past decade +, his team has been teaching others to become wine guides (distributors) and making a living selling various wines.
The business is now successful and distributors can be found in 40 US states.
Travelling Vineyard is Based in Ipswich, Massachusetts, US.
The Traveling Vineyard Products
There are 6 categories to choose from:
Reds, Sweet & Fizzy, White, Semi-sweet, + wine accessories, and success kits, a total of 36 products at the time of writing.
Certainly not as many choices as you would find in an average supermarket and not priced accordingly either!
Red Wines:
Hot Ticket (Shiraz) $17.99
Woodvale Estates (Merlot) $18.99
Heist (Cabernet Sauvignon) $27.99
+ 10 other choices that you can see on the website
White Wine, Semi-sweet and Fizzy
Hotsy Totsy is a semi-sweet wine, $18.99
Fissata is a sweet Red, $18.99
You can see the other selections here.
How Does The Traveling Vineyard Business Work?
MLMs can and do make money for the right people and that is definitely not everyone.
What you as a distributor need to do:
- Buy the products yourself.
- Sell the wine to other people.
- Recruit new distributors and build a downline.
Making any kind of serious money with this type of business means you simply have to be great at all of the above.
Team members come and go that is the nature of the business so recruiting new members is a constant battle.
Salespeople make it seem simple to do but people soon realise that it takes a great deal of work and that is when they leave.
Not many make a career in any MLM company. The stats say that 73% of people make little or no money at all.
Related Post: Perfectly Posh
How To Become A Travelling Vineyard Member?
There are 3 ways to do this:
Digital Success Kit
$59.00
1. $35 Wine Credit to Shop Wine
2. 20% Discount on Wine
3. Wine 101 and Business Building Training
4. Personal Shopping Website: Join Month + 1 Month Free
5. Enrollment in Fast Start and the potential to earn $225 in wine rewards in your first 100 days
Essential Success Kit
$99.00
1. 2 Tasting Set Credits (10 bottles of wine) valued at $225
2. Magic Decanter Aerator
3. Stainless Steel Waiter’s Style Corkscrew
4. 2 Part Survey and Interest Form (Pack 50)
5. 6 bottle tote
6. 2 wine pourers
7. Hosting brochure (Pack 25)
8. Fast Start Guide
Success Kit
$179.00
1. 2 Tasting Set Credits (10 bottles of wine)
2. 18 Tasting Glasses
3. 18 Glass Carrying Case
4. Magic Decanter Aerator
5. Stainless Steel Waiter’s Style Corkscrew
6. 2 wine pourers
7. 6 Sommology Tins
8. Sommology Education Cards
9. 2 Part Survey and Interest Form (Pack 50)
10. 6 bottle tote
11. Hosting brochure (Pack 25)
12. Team Building brochure (Pack 25)
13. Fast Start Guide
Notes: You need to remember that the wines are paired with foods that you need to supply as well as restocking your wines for the next party.
How You Get Paid With Travelling Vineyard?
MLM companies tend to pay you based solely on commissions.
Here they range from 15% which is a lot lower than some around to 35%
As you can see in the table the more sales you make the bigger the commissions you can receive.
After a bit of research, I found out that you need to sell 150 bottles of the highest-priced wine to get the top commission. (every month)
I’m sure there are some people that can do it.
You don’t purchase the wine you just order it for the customer and then have it delivered to you or for an additional fee directly to the consumer.
There is also a 35 paid guide that you can read, on the 1st page it lists 10 other ways to get paid by Travelling Vineyard which I will cover here:
All based on the recruitment of new members.
1. Personal marketing fees
2. Personal bonuses
3. Management bonuses
4. Fast Start Bonuses
5. Early Promotion Bonuses
6. Team Leader Promotional Bonuses
7. Director Promotional Bonuses
8. Leadership Bonuses
9. Generation Overrides
10. Director Leg Pool Bonuses
The Travelling Vineyard Compensation Plan
I reviewed quite a lot of MLM companies and the majority of them show you how much their distributors make each year so you can decide if this is worth your time!
That was the case with Travelling Vineyard at least up till 2017 and now you can only see it if you become a wine guide.
In other words an active member.
The guide is very complicated so I’m leaving it up to one of the members to explain it in this video:
Judging by the last figures published back in 2017 out of 4,531 members only 51 of them were earning anything over $12,000 a year.
The rest were earning between $350 to $7,492 per year. You couldn’t quit your 9-5 with those figures!
Now onto what people say about joining this offer.
Travelling Vineyard Member Reviews
Before joining any type of business you should research what the members say.
The screenshot below was taken from the Travelling Vineyard website.
I looked at 10 pages and didn’t find 1 single negative post.
Call me a cynic but in the interest of fairness, I researched a bit more on some other sites and found a couple of negative comments.
These are from Yelp.
There are also positive reviews there as well. These images are difficult to read so you can see them better by going to the Yelp website.
It is impossible to please everyone!
What I Like About Travelling Vineyard
1. There is no auto-ship involved which is very unusual.
2. They have a very good rating from the Beter Business Bureau.
3. Not a huge amount of money to get started.
4. They give some of their profits to very worthy causes.
5. Been around for many years.
What I Don’t Like About Travelling Vineyard
1. Not giving all the information on spending like paying for food for the parties.
2. Hard to make any decent amount of money without recruiting a big team. most people only earned $350 for a year’s work.
3. Not a big selection of wines to choose from.
4. I do not recommend this to novices at all.
5. Why hide the Income disclosure?
6. This only works if you live in America.
Who Is Travelling Vineyard For?
If you have a background in sales and are good with people in a face to face setting as well as liking to prepare different foods to go with the wines then this is for you.
The fact that it has been around since 2010 shows that it works for some people.
I can imagine it could be very limiting to how many people you know that would host a party in your area.
I tried a couple of MLMs and it definitely wasn’t for me! I could not recruit a single person.
Is Travelling Vineyard A Scam?
No. this is a legit business and is in no way a scam.
It would not have been around for 12 years if it was a scam as the FTC would have shut it down long ago.
I cannot see the majority of applicants making a full-time income from it, However, you could make a small side hustle that could be fun if you enjoy wine and socialising.
One thing you need to be aware of is wine shipping policies. You cannot send wine through the US postal service to other countries.
It is also prohibited in some US states.
An Alternative Way To Make Money Online
My method is to use affiliate marketing because I don’t need to recruit anyone and it is far easier to learn.
After joining so many online programs that were not quite what had been promised I almost gave up on searching for the right program.
In fact, it took me 6 years of research before I trusted anything online and even then I took it very slowly.
The company I joined was free and let me use all of the features for a 7-day test drive without having to add a credit card.
Then I signed up for a month.
That was 2 years ago!
It is called Wealthy Affiliate and I have written an unbiased review that you can read.
I’m very happy that you have made it to the end.
If you feel I have not covered everything for you then let me know in the comments below and I shall be more than happy to answer any questions.
Lisa. Founder and CEO of mistakesbloggersmake.com
