multilevel marketingnoun [ U ]
also multi-level marketing ukusabbreviation MLM, also network marketing COMMERCE, MARKETINGa method of selling a product in which someone sells to people they know and then gives training to those people to sell the product themselves. The original person earns money not only from their own sales, but also on what is sold by the people they have given training to:
While some distributors have prospered in multilevel marketing, law-enforcement officials say the field also has fraudulent operations.