I signed up in 2016. I had been to a few sales and what I saw was pieces flying off the racks. I guess I paid little attention to the garbage pieces because I was more interested in finding pieces I liked. The fun prints also excited me. I bought my little sister a watermelon dress and piano key leggings. Looking back, I didnt really like the print of the first perfect tee i bought. It was more that I liked the fit of the style. It accentuated my chest and minimized focus on my stomach. And since I didnt love any of the prints in my size, I think I subconsciously picked the least hideous. I loved the soft leggings and the tops were still made in the US and held up well. I even still have some of those early pieces and four years later, they still hold up. I had inherited some money recently and purchased a house and lula roe seemed like a fun way to get my mind off the illness and death of my father, and try to pay off the house faster.

In the beginning, stuff did sell. I remember my Christmas Leggings selling out in about 3 minutes with people on a waiting list for every pair coming in another box the next week. I remember a day that my rack collapsed under the weight of my paid orders. I remember a postal receipt of sales that was longer than I am tall. During this time, the stress if losing my father and then, six months later, my grandmother, caused me to miss more work that was acceptable and I lost my job. But its ok, the lula is selling and my husband thinks I should focus on that rather than going back into the work force.

And then, very suddenly, the sales stopped. Even selling at a discount, I couldnt compete with the girls going out of business. I could discount my Julias to $25 and still make a small profit but there were a dozen other women with the same Julia dresses for $20 or less. And the lower i dropped the prices, the more demanding the bargain shoppers got. "Can I get a closer photo of the pattern?" So I put on shoes and go to my lula shed, snap the picture and send it. I got back to the warm house to continue desperately trying to drum up business. Then, 15 minutes later they want a picture of the tag. So, I get up, go get that picture, send it. Wait $20 minutes and get a request to find a top to go with it. Awesome, maybe I'll sell two pieces. Send several shots of the leggings with tops. Wait until bedtime with no response. Go to bed. Wake up to a barrage of messages berating me for not responding to the message they sent me at 3:27 am my time. I answer them at 8, apologizing, explaining I am on the West Coast and was sleeping. Now they want a bigger discount and free shipping for their "trouble." I explain that I am already selling at a deep discount(usually $12-17 by this point) and that if I go any lower and pay for shipping I will lose money. So I lose the sale. Or, maybe worse, the Karen points out that the $12 shipped she is offering me is better than nothing and, admittedly, I could really use the $9 I'll end up with after shipping, so I take it and hope I get a nicer pair with that $9 that maybe, just maybe, I can sell for $25. But no, I get more neon doritos.

So, I start contemplating quitting. Afterall, they are offering a 100% refund and I have taken on an entry level part time job to help make ends meet. They have been offering me more hours. Then I start hearing nightmares about women waiting months for their refunds. So, maybe I'll give it one more shot and try to sell at wholesale and break even. But by now, wholesale is even more than people want to pay. Women are desperate and selling leggings they paid $9.50 wholesale for for just $8 shipped. And by the time I give up, lula roe has cancelled the 100% buy back blaming "greedy consultants taking advantage of them" as their reasoning. But my original contract does include a 90% buy back clause but only on items you bought from them - if you bought from other consultants who were going out of business, you couldnt return that stuff, even though they encouraged us to buy from other consultants to try to keep them from selling deeply discounted to consumers. They also wont take "collection items" so holidays and elegant are excluded. Good thing I rarely got those. So, ok, I can return about 85% of my unsold merchandise. What about the other 15%? Friends and family buy some pieces but some of this stuff is just literall garbage. No one wants it. Eventually, I have a woman contact me. She likes the crazy prints for her grandkids and some if her friends. We agree to $5 an item for my last 50 or so items with me covering shipping. In the end, I get a refund check from lula roe for a little under $4000.

There is a problem though. Between supplies, unmovable merchandise, failed marketing, I'm pretty buried in debt. That house we were going to use the lula roe money to pay off faster has some equity so we take out a $30,000 home equity loan. We pay off the debt that was accrued while I was out of work and trying in vain to make my business work. I now make a $225 payment every month, reminding me of the biggest mistake I ever made.

For so long, I blamed myself. Lula Roe told us that the only reason that we weren't successful is that we weren't trying hard enough. The women who quit were "pigs" and if we just worked harder, we would be successful. We too could be getting 5 or 6 or even 7 figure bonus checks if we just tried. But the reality was, I spent all day on my phone doing everything i could think of to generate interest. I put together outfits. I created a loyalty program. I did giveaways. Donated my duplicates to the YWCA and supported local charities with my sales. I answered inquiries all waking hours. The only way I could have worked harder was by eliminating sleep and being available 24 hours a day til I dropped dead.

It was my fault that I signed up. It was my fault that I ignored my gut feeling and disregarded articles that painted the brand I loved in a negative light. It was my fault that I took 6 months off after losing my job rather than going back into the work force right away. But it is NOT my fault that my products couldnt sell for a profit. I'm not the one who produced hideous designs and over saturated the market by allowing a 400% increase in consultants over about a year. I'm not the one who outsourced production over seas to factories that would make it cheaper and I'm not the one who introduced millions of shoddy products into the market to destroy the once strong faith in the brand.

Lula Roe is run my crooks who care more about draining women of their money than they do about "empowering women." The highlight of my life would be to see DeAnne and Mark in orange prison jump suits and to see their fortune turned over to the families whose livelihoods they destroyed with their insatiable greed. As hard as I got it, I got off easy. There was never a struggle to put food on the table and I never had to decide which bill to leave unpaid. I dont have children that were affected or neglected. I have read the stories of so many women who lost more than I. Of women whose children begged them to put down the phone or turn off the computer and be there with them. Of women who lost their homes or whose marriage fell apart. And it continues to this day. My state is currently suing Lula Roe for illegal business practices and I am beyond eager to see how that turns out. But even if they win, there is no way to undo the damage. We just move on and hope we learned our lesson.