I am sure as a good business owner (Independent Mary Kay Sales Director) you have weighed the cost of going to Dallas. Most will be coming a distance and require an airline ticket, hotel room (which you may share with one or two other directors to save some money), food, and don't forget your time; which is money.

As a business we have these expenses and many many more, plus we have multiple people with these costs for the entire duration of Seminar, not just three or four days. Besides expenses for transportation to get to Dallas, costs also include our hotel rooms and meals for three weeks, and clothes required to wear the duration of the show. We pay employees to price all the items months in advance which is time consuming as we are providing thousands of items. We must pay suppliers up front which amounts to tens of thousands of dollars with the amount of merchandise we offer. Many products are not easily obtainable but are requested by the directors. We go to a lot of effort to supply these.

Employees set up all of the booths and work during the entire show and have to be compensated for their time which is not the typical 8 hours a day. A major expense is the cost of rent for the space as well as all the supplies, electricity, phone lines and credit card charges. While we still have all the expenses of daily operations for our office in Norcross, Georgia. There are employees to pay, rent and we must keep merchandise in our office for all those who are not going Seminar or need items before or after. All these cost must also be taken in to account as they affect our bottom line.

Many times at Seminar we run out of a product that we had not anticipated. With years of experience you still can't predict which item will be a big hit and what will only sell a few. To make directors happy we bring in more of many items; therefore, we have the expense of them rushed delivered to us. We are not even breaking even on the cost of the item.

Once Seminar is over we have to pay these same employees to take down everything and pay to have all the merchandise shipped back to Atlanta. No matter how well the show goes we always have excess products coming back to our office. We then are many times forced to sell below cost or we will keep the items for years to come. We cannot continue this practice. We have kept our prices at an incredible level even for a wholesale and do not require a minimum purchase as so many wholesalers do. Our suppliers have continued to increase their cost, however. Just the cost of getting the products shipped to us and our customers has increased every year. The price of gold is at a all time high. Even though are items are costume they are still made from parts of this same gold. We have some suppliers that have tacked on an overhead for the increased metal cost. We have not passed this cost on to you.

Whitney has been going to Seminar for more than 20 years so it was a major decision for us not to be going to Seminar. We will miss seeing old friends as well as making new ones. We know you look forward to seeing all the items in person. I hope that you can understand why we will not be there this year. We will be offering incentives so that you can buy a few items to try and see if you like them. We will continue to send out news of these promotions for you to see our beautiful jewelry and offer you a savings since we will not be in Dallas this year.