Tag Archives: Amway

Amway News, Nutrilite

Great video from Nutrilite and Kurt Warner!

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You may know that Kurt Warner is two time winner of the NFL Most Valuable Player award, and also winner of a Superbowl MVP award. What you might not know is that in 2010 he won the Bart Starr Award for “outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community”. While people like Howard Megdal may be clueless about Amway (see my post a couple of days ago!), people like Kurt Warner are not, which is why he’s a spokesperson for Amway’s Nutrilite brand.

He’s also got a great sense of theatre!


Amway North America, Commentary

The disgusting censorship of Howard Megdal, Emma Span, Sports on Earth and Capital New York

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Amway recently opened a business center at Citi Field in New York, home to the New York Mets baseball team. There was nothing secret it about, I published a story about it more than two months ago. The opening of the business center apparently came as a shock to some New York journalists, and in particular one by the name of Howard Megdal, who wrote two disparaging and ridiculously inaccurate articles about the Amway/Mets deal for the website Capital New York. According to Bridgett blogged appropriately about the response – America’s National Pastimes: Amway-Bashing & Baseball.

I wrote a reply to Howard in the comments on one of the Capital New York articles, pointing out some of the errors. The site said I needed to register, so I did, upon which I received an email saying my account needed approval before the comment would be posted. I waited. No post. No approval. Other comments appeared. I tried registering a new account, separate from the article, using my full name and email address. I received an email saying my account needed approval. No approval was ever forth coming. Attempts to log in said the accounts were blocked.

I posted a comment on twitter, tagging both Howard Megdal and Capital New York to protest. Megdal replied they weren’t deleting anything. I still couldn’t post.

HowardMegdalCensorship

I tried again, I still couldn’t post a comment. In the meantime, Amway showed nothing but class and reached out to Megdal and invited him to tour the facility.

His response was a third article on the website Sports On Earth, a join venture between Major League Baseball and USA Today. The article was again full of tired cliches and outright falsehoods about Amway and multilevel marketing. I posted a reply there. Sports On Earth uses the Disqus commenting system, so I could see my comment in my My Disqus control panel. It said it was awaiting moderator approval.

Then it disappeared.

I wrote a very short comment on the same article asking Howard why he was deleting my comments. It appeared immediately. Megdal replied that he wasn’t deleting comments, and couldn’t. I pointed out that if it wasn’t him, then his moderators certainly were. Another commentator said they’d like to see my responses for some balance. So I wrote several responses addressing the many inaccuracies in his article. A moderator, another “journalist” on the site,Emma Span, said she had deleted the original comment, accusing me of spamming “Amway PR”, and said if I posted again she would delete all my comments. She was true to her word, for when I protested she deleted my responses and the comment from other readers saying they wanted to read my responses.

Not surprisingly, I can no longer comment there.

This kind of censorship from ostensibly professional media outlets is nothing less than disgusting. I was not offensive in my comments, I did not in any way violate the terms and conditions for commenting on these websites. I simply pointed out the many inaccuracies in the article, with appropriate citations to back up what I was saying.

Those responsible simply didn’t want people to read what I had to say.

Interestingly, I researched Howard Megdal a little further as I wrote this article, and it seems I may have misread his motives a little bit. I thought he was unfairly attacking Amway. It seems though his target isn’t Amway at all, it’s the Mets and their owner, Fred Wilpon. In 2010 he wrote a whole book lobbying to become the Mets General Manager. Apparently it didn’t work, and in 2011 he wrote another book attacking them – Wilpon’s Folly: The Story of a Man, His Fortune, and the New York Mets.

The Mets challenged many of the assertions Megdal made in the book, removed his media credentials, and wrote in response –

The author’s desperate self-promotional campaign for relevance has led to perpetuating baseless speculation and complete inaccuracies.

Now, I haven’t read any of Megdal’s books and neither am I an expert on the Mets. I do however consider myself to have some expertise on the subjects of Amway and Multilevel Marketing. If Megdal’s reporting on other topics is as wildly inaccurate and misleading as his reporting on Amway and MLM, and if he condones the active censorship of those who challenge that reporting – well, I’d suggest trusting very little of what he writes.

Amway Facts, Amway News

Amway 2012 – by the numbers

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  • $11.3 Billion in Sales
  • Sales Increased 12 of the Last 13 Years
  • All Top 10 Markets Grew
  • $3.5 Billion in Bonuses & Incentives
  • 55,264 New Pin Qualifiers
  • 18,982 New Platinums
  • 53,200 Incentive Trip Qualifiers
  • 2.5 Million Volunteer Hours
  • More than $166 Million Donated
  • Nutrilite is the World”s #1 Selling Vitamin & Dietary Supplements Brand
  • Artistry is Among the Worlds Top 5 Largest Selling Premium Skin Care Brand
  • eSpring is the World’s #1 Largest-Selling Brand of Kitchen Water Treatment Systems
  • Atmosphere is the World’s #1 Largest-Selling Brand of Residential Air Treatment Systems
  • More Than 21,000 Employees Globally
  • More than 1,000 Patents Granted and 800 Patents Pending
  • More Than 900 Scientists and Technicians
  • 65 R&D Labs
  • Amway Paid Out More Bonuses & Cash Incentives to Its Distributors and Business Owners Worldwide Than Any Other Direct Sales Company
  • More People Renewed Their Amway Business Than Any Other Direct Selling Company in the World.
Amway Myths, Commentary

MLM has too many middlemen?

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One of the claims of critics of the multi-level marketing model is that due to having paying the independent distributors, there’s too many “middlemen” to be able to distribute products efficiently, thus it forces the prices of MLM products to be too high. Well, if you’ve been paying attention to European news in the past week, there’s been a great example showing how MLM critics aren’t just ignorant of the MLM model – they’re ignorant of business models in general.

What’s happened is that it was discovered that some pre-packaged food products, such as lasagne, being sold in supermarkets around Europe contained horse meat instead of the advertised beef. Following the trail of blame shows just how many middlemen there are involved in “traditional” supply and distribution –

  1. The customers are upset at
  2. The supermarkets who are upset at

  3. Findus (brand) who blames their supplier

  4. Comigel (manufacturer) who blames their supplier

  5. Spanghero (meat processer) who blames their

  6. agent in Cyprus who blames their

  7. agent in the Netherlands who blames

  8. abattoirs in Romania who bought

  9. the horse meat off local farmers

So to get the product (meat) to the customers, there are at least 8 different middlemen, including at least 3 in the distribution chain. Indeed there’s almost certainly more, such as transport companies, local wharehouses. advertising companies, legal and accounting firms and more. All of these get paid out the final price of the product as paid by the consumer.

How does it work in Amway? Well, back in the 1970s when the FTC investigated (and cleared) Amway, they found –

43. Currently about half of all Amway distributors were sponsored by a Direct Distributor or by a distributor sponsored by a Direct Distributor. More than 70% were within three positions of a Direct Distributor and 99% were within seven positions. (RX 423)

So for half of all distributors, it went –

  1. distributor
  2. direct distributor
  3. Amway (manufacturer)

So just 3 levels of “middlemen” for half of all transactions in the distribution chain, and only two when you consider the distributor as customer, which is a common scenario. That compares to 3+ levels in the distribution channel for the Findus product – and then you have 5 levels in the supply chain. How long is the supply chain for Nutrilite, Amway’s largest brand? Amway is the supplier, they own their own farms which supply their core ingredients. Yes there’ll be some suppliers for other ingredients, but it’s nowhere near the total of 8 levels in the supply and distribution chain for the lasagne.

MLM critics – not just ignorant about Amway and the MLM model.

Amway Facts, Amway News

(updated as incorrect) Amway sales exceed $12 billion, surpassing Avon to be the world’s #1 direct selling company

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I’ve heard unofficial claims for some time, but now it’s confirmed – Amway has exceeded $12 billion in sales for the 2012 IBO fiscal year (September to August). For the same period, Avon reported sales of  $US10.8 billion.

In 2006 Amway’s sales dropped slightly for the first time in many years, settling back to $6.3 billion. In reponse Amway set the ambitious goal to reach $12 billion in sales in 2012, an almost doubling of sales in only 5 years. They have done it.

The Bangkok Post reports that for the first time in more than two decades, all of the top 10 Asia-Pacific markets have experienced growth. In October, Amway North America announced to IBOs they had achieved 33 consecutive months of growth in that market – it’s oldest. Figures for the official 2012 Amway financial year will not be released until February, but it is clear that Amway is now the world’s #1 direct selling company

Congratulations to Amway, Amway employees, and Amway IBO’s around the world!

Update: A reliable source is telling me that the sales figure reported in the Bangkok Post is not accurate. Another reliable source has however confirmed the claim about surpassing Avon.

Update 20120207: Official figures are out and my source was correct, sales were $11.3 billion, not quite reaching $12 billion, and they’ve still beat Avon for #1!

Amway Facts, Amway Products

Amway and Euromonitor

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Most IBOs would be aware of various “claims” about Amway’s products and sales that are backed up by research done by Euromonitor International. I’ve just discovered Euromonitor actually has a page on their website describing some of the claims and their methodology. Worth a look! The claims listed are –

  • Since 1959, Amway has paid out more bonuses and cash incentives to its distributors worldwide than any other direct sales company in history.
  • In 2010, Amway paid out more bonuses and cash incentives to its distributors worldwide than any other direct sales company.
  • In 2011, Amway paid out more bonuses and cash incentives to its distributors worldwide than any other direct sales company.
  • In 2011, more people renewed their Amway business than any other direct selling company in the world.
  • Amway is the first leading direct selling company in Brazil to empower its distributors with exclusive Facebook tools to manage their business.
  • Nutrilite is the only global vitamin and mineral brand to grow, harvest, and process plants on their own certified organic farms.
  • Artistry is among the world’s top five, largest selling, premium skincare brands.
  • Artistry is among the world’s top ten, largest selling, premium cosmetics brands.

 

Amway News, Amway North America, Endorsements

Amway to be presenting sponsor of the Detroit Red Wings

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Amway and the 11 time Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings have announced that Amway is to be the team’s first ever presenting sponsor, and Nutrilite the team’s official nutritional supplement. Nutrilite is also going to work with the team on optimising supplements for each player.

With 11 titles the Red Wings are the most successful ice hockey club in the US, bested in the overall NHL rankings only by two Canadian teams. Along with the AC Milan sponsorship this means Amway and Nutrilite are partnered with two of the most successful teams in world sport. This sponsorship has benefits outside of the US though, with the team currently including not only 6 American players, but 7 Canadians, 6 Swedes, 2 Czechs, a Russian, a Finn, and a Slovenian. Indeed the captain, Niklas Lindström, is a Swede, so this sponsorship might be a fillip for Amway Sweden as well as North America.

The increased effort in marketing and branding seems to be working, with Amway North America Vice-President of Sales, Sandy Spielmaker revealing in a video to IBOs this week that Amway North America has been experiencing double digit growth over the past year.