Is Shopping Sherlock a Multilevel Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, or Scam? Will Shopping Sherlock help you snoop your way to earn income online? We will find out in this comprehensive review of Shopping Sherlock.
In this review, we will discuss what Shopping Sherlock’s product is, its compensation plan, any commission that can be earned, whether it is a scam, and its pros and cons.
What Is Shopping Sherlock?
Basically, Shopping Sherlock is a non-paid search engine that aids you in looking for affordable online deals like tickets and various physical products.
Even though this search engine is free, it is not easily available just to about anyone. It is a private search engine which you can only access through an invitation.
Outsiders will need an invitation through a code in order to register as a member. The invitation code can be accessed from its distributors.
These distributors are paid members, this means they paid $249 to become members.
Shopping Sherlock Product Line
Its product line revolves around the search engine software. This is a toolbar software which users install on a computer. After completing the installation, online activity is captured through the software.
For instance, when searching for a product, say an online ticket, the software captures data and shows a list of affiliate offers.
Shopping Sherlock also enables affiliate partners to put on advertising. This means that when a Shopping Sherlock user buys or clicks on an ad, the referring affiliate can earn a commission.
This suggests that Shopping Sherlock could be personally branded by its affiliates.
Shopping Sherlock Compensation Plan
Shopping Sherlock is a software product that is promoted in order to earn from it. These promoters are called distributors.
The distributor earns commission when a product is sold through Shopping Sherlock. This is the method used by its affiliates who create vouchers for the system in order to attract many to start distributing the product.
Shopping Sherlock Membership Ranks
There are a variety of elements in this compensation plan. These commission qualifications are determined by the affiliate member’s rank.
Shopping Sherlock has seven membership ranks. Each rank has its own qualification criteria.
Registered Representative – this rank has $19 sign-up fee. This is a recurring fee every year.
- Independent Sherlock Distributor – this rank has $239 sign-up fee which allows for up to 5 users to install the software with your affiliate key. For maintenance of qualification, a distributor must have three verified installs every month. The good thing is, this requirement would be eliminated after a distributor has 40 verified software installs.
- Registered Sherlock Distributor – this rank has $239 sign-up fee which allows for up to 5 users to install the software with your affiliate key. For maintenance of qualification, a distributor, like the previous rank must have three verified installs every month. The good thing is, this requirement would also be eliminated after a distributor has 40 verified software installs.
- Power Distributor – a Power Distributor must have 4 distributors recruited. One distributor must be on the left binary system and the other on the right. It also requires 10 downline distributors and 10 verified software installs.
- Power Distribution Builder – this rank requires a personal Power Distributor recruit in the left and right binary teams.
- Gold Power Distributor – this rank requires 3 personal Power Distributors recruits and a total of 6 in the binary organization. Each binary team must have at least 1 personal Power Distributor recruit.
- Global Power Distributor – this rank requires 4 Power Distributor recruits and a total of 8 in the binary organization. Each binary team must have at least 1 personal Power Distributor recruit and a total of 20 verified software installs.
- Diamond Power Distributor – this rank requires 8 Power Distributors, a total of 16 in the binary team and 40 verified software installs.
Shopping Sherlock Commissions
Affiliates and customers can generate purchase or PPC ads using the software.
The commissions are forwarded to Shopping Sherlock. Shopping Sherlock then divides the commission to the referring affiliates. Percentage commissions given will depend on the affiliate program networked with.
- Voucher Commission – a commission system is also made through the software. 5% of the purchase price of a voucher bought by a user is given to the referring affiliate. 5% of the purchase price of a voucher created by a business that is sold company-wide is given to the referring affiliate.
- Affiliate Override Commissions – this commission is 20% of the overall shopping commission made by an affiliate.
- This commission requires 2 new affiliate recruits within 3 days of joining the company or 4 new affiliates with no time limit.
- Recruitment Commission – Shopping Sherlock affiliates can make $100 for every 2 new affiliate recruits. However, these commissions are only for affiliates that have distributed at least 3 verified software installs per month. This requirement is eliminated after 40 verified installs are made.
- Residual Recruitment Commission – these commissions are paid through the binary structure. This structure involves an affiliate on top of a left leg and a right leg branching under it. Through this structure a payout is made when 2 new affiliates are made.
The residual commission component is given after affiliates pay the monthly membership payments. This is $10 for every 4 affiliates in the binary structure, two on both sides.
Other than that, another $10 is given when an affiliate in the binary structure qualifies foe override commissions.
Is Shopping Sherlock a Scam?
Is Shopping Sherlock a scam? Not necessarily. However, important elements of the structure need to be understood first before getting involved. This isn’t just speaking about Shopping Sherlock, but about any business venture for that matter.
As seen from the business structure mentioned above, Shopping Sherlock involves a lot of recruitment. This is a big area to consider. If recruitment is your thing, then this business might work for you.
This software in a nutshell is a cheap deals online finder. This works like a distinctive Google that looks for the best deals on tickets and physical products.
The software is free, however an invitation must be accessed to be able to use it. Along the process of registering to use the software, an email is required. This is a smart move so that the business gains a viable lead.
But taking a greater look at it, the cost for joining Shopping Sherlock and availing of its commission perks is a big amount to pay.
This may not be a scam, but I can’t say it’s a good investment either. What Shopping Sherlock can do, can be done with Google or any other free search engine or app.
Websites such as Amazon, aliexpress.com, Ebay, bizrate.com, Rakuten.com and Walmart allow you to search for items’ prices.
In most cases, when you Google for items, you get the best prices available in pop ups or from the list generated by the search engine.
For travel deals, there are various travel sites that aid in helping find the best deals, apps are even available for that.
The challenge with Shopping Sherlock is that each product search must be done separately, which is just as good as opening up another internet tab browser.
With Shopping Sherlock you have to search in each tab separately for products anyway, so you might as well just open up your own tabs in your internet browser.
With all of this, yes Shopping Sherlock can give you the cheapest deals. Yet is no logical reason to spend for membership to gain discounts.
In the end, it may seem like there is not much saved because even with the cheap deals, you still pay for the membership. Well, this is not a problem of course if you have the money to spend.
The point of using this search engine is to find cheap deals and let you save a substantial amount of funds. But the cost makes it break even; this will not serve its purpose.
Additionally, if you go for a business venture, you will need all the training and support you will need in order to make a success of earning from the business. However, Shopping Sherlock doesn’t provide substantial training and uplines are the only ones that can be considered as sources of support.
The Pros and Cons of Shopping Sherlock
The Pros:
- Can be a source of income
- Offers savings with cheap deals from products of big companies
The Cons:
- The shopping Sherlock product is just the software
- No training provided
- Focuses much effort on recruitment
- The uplines are the only sources of support
- Business style could be likened to pyramid
- Pricey to maintain membership
Bottom Line
The bottom line is, when a business’s selling point is their offer of making things easier and letting you save some funds it may be so.
Yet, it might require a little more digging because behind every enticing offer is a real deal that is more complicated than what is presented.
It would require research and a bit of logic to weigh if things are really worth delving into.
Because in the long run, you might end up losing more that saving.
If you’re interested in the Shopping Sherlock because you want to make money online, I don’t think paying for Shopping Sherlock is a good idea.
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