Jewels By Park Lane Review

Posted in Jewels | Park Lane

Jewels by Park Lane is a network marketing company out of Schaumburg IL that sells jewelry through home parties, individual sales, and over the Internet.

The company was founded by a married couple, Arthur and Shirley Levin, in 1955. The young couple – they were 18 and 15 when they married that same year – knew from the start that they wanted to own and operate their own business.

After some research, the couple settled on the network marketing business model and decided that they would sell jewelry designed by Shirley, a former student at the Chicago Art Institute. With those decisions made, they took $1800 of their personal savings and began their business by holding home parties themselves.

Today the company is run by the second generation of LeVins – Scott, Mark, and Arthur. Jewels by Park Lane offers more than 200 pieces in their yearly catalog.

Jewels By Park Lane’s Products

Jewels By Park Lane offers upscale costume jewelry – rings, earrings, bracelets, and necklaces – ranging in price from roughly $30 to a little over $100.

This range is an estimates, however, because JBPL’s Summer 2010 catalog doesn’t list prices, and neither does the company’s online May 2010 brochure. The only information about prices for specific items was found in the company’s June 2010 online brochure.

As for style, JBPL’s taste runs from the very simple to the more ostentatious. The Whisper earrings featured in the June 2010 brochure, for example, are only two artfully draped teardrops of metal. While in the May catalog, the company’s Treasure Island necklace is sure to stand out with its silver tone, pink crystal, and mother of pearl disks.

Flowers seem to feature prominently in Jewels By Park Lane designs. Circles and rounded cuts seem to be JBPL’s favorite shapes to work with.

One thing to note is that JBPL uses silver tone or gold tone metals, not solid sterling silver or gold. People with metal sensitivities should speak with a company representative to make sure they can wear their selections before they buy them.

Jewels By Park Lane: Opportunity and Compensation

Most network marketing companies give at least some details about their compensation plans on their websites. In the case of at least one that does not, Mary Kay, that information has been published elsewhere.

That’s not the case with Jewels By Park Lane. While the company does say that it pays retail commissions and bonuses for recruiting downline members, there are no specific numbers available anywhere on the JBPL website. A quick google revealed that no one else seems to have published JPBL’s compensation plan or policies and procedures, either.

In order to get any in-depth information about JBPL, it’s necessary to fill out a contact form and provide the company with your personal information. This might be a decided turn-off for people who want to get a better idea of the company’s opportunity without having their information captured and possibly used in ways they would not approve of.

One thing that does seem certain is that Jewels By Park Lane has a fairly open Internet marketing policy. Several representatives’ websites came up quickly on Google, and a quick scan of those sites revealed that JBPL representatives are pretty free to personalize their websites as they see fit.

This is a plus in the company’s favor because it allows representatives to use one of the most vital tools in any Internet marketer’s kit – personal branding.

It’s probably also important to note that while Jewels By Park Lane is a Better Business Bureau-accredited business with an A+ rating, the company is not a member of the Direct Selling Association. The Direct Selling Association has set the standards for the network marketing industry.

Recommendations

Jewels By Park Lane is an over 50-year-old company with an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. And, unlike a number of the network marketing companies reviewed on this site, a fairly detailed Google search on JBPL revealed no significant complaints against the company.

The only complaint found was an over 10-year-old lawsuit.

This means that JBPL must be doing something right.

On the other hand, however, it’s hard to give a glowing recommendation to any company that makes so little necessary information readily available. MLM Files can’t tell you a thing about Jewels By Park Lane’s compensation plan or policies and procedures.

You won’t be able to find out, either, unless you are willing to risk giving your personal information to a company that may or may not sell that information to third parties – the JBPL website doesn’t have any privacy guarantees.

Our best advice is that you contact the company directly and ask them to provide you with the information you need to make a good business decision. Jewels By Park Lane seems to be a solid network marketing company with a long history of making its customers and representatives happy. But you still have a right to make a fully informed decision about whether or not to sign up with JBPL before you part with your personal information.