Amway Home
Business Opportunities
Amway has
one of the longest histories of network marketing companies out there.
Along with Shaklee,
they are considered the "grand-dad's" and pioneers in this industry.
Wikipedia's entry on this covers the breadth of their active history
and product-lines:
Amway is an American multinational direct-selling company that uses multi-level marketing to sell a
variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty, and home care
markets.[3][4][5]
Amway was founded in 1959 by Jay
Van Andel and Richard DeVos. Based in Ada, Michigan, the company and family of
companies under Alticor reported sales growth of 9.5%, reaching
US$9.2 billion for the year ending December 31, 2010.[needs
update][1]
Its product lines include home care products, personal care products,
jewelry, electronics, Nutrilite dietary supplements,
water purifiers, air
purifiers, insurance and cosmetics. Amway conducts business through a
number of affiliated companies in more than a hundred countries and
territories around the world.[6][dead link] Amway was
ranked No.114 among the largest global retailers by Deloitte
in 2006, and No.39, 32 and 28 among the largest private companies in
the U.S. by Forbes in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively.[7]
Is Amway a pyramid scheme?
Again, let's refer to Wikipedia:
Pyramid scheme accusations
Amway has several times been accused of being a pyramid scheme.
Harvard Business School of Leadership, which described Amway as “one of the most profitable direct selling companies in the world", noted that Amway founders Van Andel and DeVos:
- "...accomplished their success through the use of an elaborate pyramid-like distribution system in which independent distributors of Amway products received a percentage of the merchandise they sold and also a percentage of the merchandise sold by recruited distributors. DeVos was an extremely charismatic speaker and used this ability to mobilize and motivate Amway distributors."[75]
DeVos responded to the pyramid scheme accusations about Amway in a 2009 interview with Grand Rapids Press reporter Chris Knape.[76]
- Knape: "Amway has been accused of being a pyramid scheme, of tax evasion and a host of other things. How much of the problems Amway has had over the years can you attribute to the decisions that you made or Jay Van Andel made?"
- DeVos: "We failed to come down hard enough, quick enough, to stamp that sort of thing out. That was a sin of omission. We failed to discipline the organization."
FTC investigation
In a 1979 ruling,[14][77] the Federal Trade Commission found that Amway does not qualify as a pyramid scheme because distributors were not paid to recruit people and had to sell products to get bonus checks, and the company was committed to buying back its distributors' excess inventory.[78]
The FTC did, however, find Amway "guilty of price-fixing and making exaggerated income claims";[79] the company was ordered to stop retail price fixing and allocating customers among distributors and was prohibited from misrepresenting the amount of profit, earnings or sales its distributors are likely to achieve with the business. Amway was ordered to accompany any such statements with the actual averages per distributor, pointing out that more than half of the distributors do not make any money, with the average distributor making less than $100 per month. The order was violated with a 1986 ad campaign, resulting in a $100,000 fine.[80][81]
What you should know in order to succeed in Amway
It makes little sense for you to invest so much of your time - of
your life - in a company
which isn't going to give you the best of the home business
opportunities available these days.
The primary problem which Amway and other MLM organizations have is
that once a new distributor runs out of "warm prospects" (people he
personally already knows), then he's dependent on those people who he
has already sponsored to get their friends and associates
sponsored.
Generating network marketing leads to become new prospects has
become a major issue for Amway and other MLM home based businesses. For
any home business opportunity, we highly recommend learning and
applying the "funded
proposal" system as developed by Mike Dillard in his "Magnetic Sponsoring" training. Additional to this
is Mark Hall's training site MLM Rock
Stars, which gives you free training and
necessary tools to generate your own MLM leads - which means, again, inviting them to come to you
instead of buying cold lists and chasing them
yourself.
What makes Amway a top MLM company?
These top MLM Companies were determined by the folks at Nexera.
The reasoning behind their research is outlined below:
2) The company must be in business for at least 10 years as of December 31, 2012.
3) The company must have a Google Page Rank - GPR. A scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being best.
4) The company must have an Alexa Rank - AR. Here the smaller the number the better.
5) The company must show up in Google Trends - GT. All Regions. Last 12 months.
Why 10 years? Because that amount of time really seems to matter. For example, according to research, since 1956 thousands of different MLM, Multi Level, or Network Marketing companies have opened their doors; and to date only +/- 50 MLM companies have found a way to celebrate their 10th anniversary and still remain in business today. Now, to be completely fair, we should also point out that each and every company on our list was at one time a start-up company too.
For purposes of comparing Internet search term interest using Google Trends (GT), all companies were compared to the term, MLM. A score of 1.00 would indicate the same level of Internet search interest; anything above 1.00 more interest, anything below 1.00 less interest.
Now that you know about Amway as a top MLM company, are you ready to learn and use the system
which makes the top-earners what they are?
Click here to find out what you need to know.
Regardless, we wish you the best of luck and progress as you
continue with your home business marketing training.
