The Truth About Amway is an independent blog, with discussion, opinions, facts, myths and news about the Amway business around the world. It is dedicated to revealing the myths and misconceptions about Amway that abound on the internet. Read More
Last October I posted how Amway North America had over 1200 new Founders’ Platinums and above last year. Well, I’ve now received some global statistics from Amway’s record breaking 2011, and they’re frankly staggering.
More than 54,000 new Platinums and above for Amway in 2011!! It’s also been reported that all of Amway’s top 10 markets experienced growth for the first 3 months of this year. Amway’s goal, set some years back, was $12 billion in 2012. Are they going to make it?
The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a somewhat voracious “defender” of a healthy lifestyle. While I agree with many of their positions, I disagree with much of the way they go about it, with attacks on various foods and supplements that often go outside scientific support and verge on obsession. I think they need to remember that stressing too much about what you’re eating can be more damaging to the health than whatever it is you are actually eating!
Anyway, this week CSPI set it’s eyes on Amway and Nutrilite in a letter to Amway President Steve Van Andel and a widely circulated press release. At best their claims against Amway are confused. At worst they are outright deceptive. They are also incredibly ironic!
CSPI attacks Amway over Nutrilite twist tubes, mentioning in particular two products, Nutrilite Fruit & Vegetables 2GO twist tubes and Strawberry Kiwi flavored Immunity Twist Tubes. CSPI’s letter and press release show a lack of due diligence on their part both with regards the products they attack and Amway itself, as well as, surprisingly, a lack of understanding of FDA regulations. I’ll start with their confusing, and misleading press release.
In the release they say -
“Fruits & Vegtables 2GO” has “the antioxidant equivalent of two of the 9–13 daily servings of fruits and vegetables your body needs,” according to Amway. But there’s far more to fruits and vegetables than just antioxidants, according to CSPI.
Oh the irony. CSPI is pretty much parroting Nutrilite’s greatest marketing differential back at Nutrilite to falsely criticise a Nutrilite product. Yes, CSPI, you are right. There is far more to fruits and vegetables than just antioxidants. It’s what Nutrilite has been saying for nearly 80 years. That’s why Fruits & vegetables 2GO has actual fruit and vegetables in it! A review of the ingredient label shows it includes “Acerola Cherry Concentrate … Pomegranate, Cranberry, Blueberry, Carrot, and Red Beet Juice Concentrates”. Real fruit and real vegetables, complete with all those phytochemicals CSPIcorrectly points out are important.
CSPI seems to have assumed that Amway’s products are like most other competitors in the nutritional supplements category – composed of synthetic isolates. In general, they’re not. That’s the Nutrilite difference. In their letter to Steve Van Andel, CSPI goes further – Read More
Just came across this great interview by Voice of Russia with Richard Steven, General Director of Amway Russia. The interview covers the startup, success, and challenges of opening Amway in the country. He confirms that Amway Russia has record sales for 2011 and global sales exceeding $10 billion. Confirmation of global sales is expected as early as today.
Check out the interview (an MP3) – Rushing for Success-> Amway: Six Years in Russia.
I’ve received a lot of queries about this and I’ve confirmed from reliable sources that Amway exceeded $10.2 billion in global sales for the 2010/2011 IBO financial year. Note that this is not the official 2011 sales figures – which should be self-evident since the year isn’t finished yet!
In 1999/2000 Amway/Alticor switched to reporting sales for a calendar year, to match the Alticor financial year. These are the figures Amway/Alticor releases every February. The IBO financial year however runs from September to August (matching the original Amway Corp financial year), and sales for this period are still reported internally and to Amway field leadership. It is at those meetings that the $10.2 billion figure has been presented. The Alticor figures that will be published in February will include revenues from other Alticor interests, such as Amway Grand Plaze, Fulton Innovation, Gurwitch products, and others. A few years ago they were reported as being around $100 million and they are probably higher today. This means that when Alticor’s official sales are published in February they’ll likely be higher than $10.2 billion.
This is, obviously, a huge milestone for Amway, particularly given global financial circumstances. Another question that has arisen is whether this now makes Amway the #1 direct sales company, surpassing Avon? Given Avon did $10.9 billion in 2010 it’s unlikely. Furthermore, as a public company, Avon reports their sales quarterly so it’s relatively simple to calculate their revenue for the October 2010 to September 2011 period, shifted just one month from the Amway sales. The result? For September 2010 to August 2011, Amway did $10.2 billion. For October 2010 to September 2011, Avon did $11.5 billion.
So no, Amway is not yet #1, but it is catching 
The following email sent by Amway to all Emeralds and up in India a couple of weeks ago regarding the situation with Sajeev Nair and MonaVie
Dear Leaders,
Greetings from Amway India !!!!
As you are aware by now, Amway India had its biggest sales month in September’11 when we had Rs.251 crore of sales. With such excitement & momentum, I am not only confident of achieving our Goal of Rs 2500 cr by 2012, but also convinced that we will attain higher GOALS in the years to come.
We have introduced several “Positive Changes” in the business from November 1st that would further fuel our growth & offer a safer future for our ABOs. These revisions have been accepted very well by leadership all around.
With growth, we also attract attention of various entities. One of them can be competing organizations who claim to be ‘Just Like Amway’business opportunities. Amway India & the Direct Selling Industry is poised for huge growth in years to come, which pulls organizations to get a share of this growing market. While we appreciate healthy competition, it is unfortunate that some organizations choose improper & dishonorable methods to grab business & get a foothold in the market. We have reasons to believe that such ‘Copycat Businesses’ with shallow income opportunities have been targeting YOUR line of sponsorship to build THEIR business. They are really not competitors but actually “predators”.
I wanted to take this opportunity to advise you on expected launch of a company in the Direct Selling market in India and what activities are currently taking place openly & surreptitiously, leading up to this launch. Read More
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MonaVie vs Amway Redux
Back in 2007/2008 Amway in North America (then known as Quixtar) was involved in a deal of controversy after terminating several Diamonds associated with the organisation TEAM, led primarily by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady. Eventually TEAM and many associated Diamonds joined another MLM company, MonaVie. There were then various legal battles between all parties over this, involving disputes of anti-Amway bloggers, stealing of corporate secrets, contract violations etc etc etc.
At the time these Diamonds were moving many in their groups to MonaVie, there were a lot of comments on this blog and elsewhere by people claiming that Amway was abandoning their distributors, changing polices, and would be opening stores, allowing their products to be sold in other retail outlets, and generally competing unfairly with the field. All of this was rubbish. What Amway has been doing around the world (though, ironically enough, not in the US) is opening up business centers to support the distributors. Some of these also act as retail outlets, but ultimately the PV and profit goes back to IBOs as usual. In my opinion these have been great innovations.
One place where Amway has been aggressively doing this is in India, with the opening of a large number of pickup locations where distributors can place orders and pickup products. It fits in well with the nature of India and seem to be working well. This week though, Times of India reports on a number of Diamonds who have stated they are leaving Amway, claiming rewards aren’t good enough and the company is focusing on showrooms and products instead of (believe it or not!) just recruiting people. Comments left on that site, and also this site, have further claimed that Amway India was going to be selling products through retail outlets and were abandoning distributors.
It all sounds awfully familiar, and low and behold … some Amway Indian Diamonds , lead by Sajeev Nair, are now loudly promoting their move to MonaVie India, just like TEAM did in North America.
This isn’t all that is familiar however. Back before the TEAM affiliated IBOs all left Amway (and there were reportedly hundreds of thousands), Amway was the subject of many complaints on the internet, people complaining of deceptive practices, hype, excessive pressure to spend money on “tools” etc etc. Since 2008 the emergence of new Amway critics on the internet has pretty much dried up. There’s a handful of diehard blogs (many run by the same person), but not really anything “new”. On the other hand, commentary from former distributors and others criticising MonaVie and MonaVie leaderslike Woodward for deceptive tactics has proliferated, with even a once anti-Amway blog like Amthrax now pretty much dedicated to anti-MonaVie commentary. Given Amway grew in sales last year by almost as much as MonaVie did total ($800M vs $854M) this can’t be attributed to MonaVie being more successful and attracting more attention. It appears that many of the tactics that helped contribute to these people getting kicked out of Amway were simply transferred to MonaVie, and the criticism has followed.
So how does this all connect to Amway India? Well, several times over the past months, a few visitors from India have left comments on The Truth About Amway regarding an Amway group called “Team One”, operating heavily in the Indian state of Kerala. The comments have complained about deceptive practices, excessive pressure to spend money on “tools” etc etc. All the same types of complaints we used to read about Amway North America, and which have diminished considerably since the TEAM dispute. I looked into Team One, and funnily enough it’s run by Sajeev Nair, the very same Double Diamond who says he’s now moving to MonaVie.
So, just like 2008 in North America, we have a large group of distributors, apparently the source of a number complaints, deciding to leave Amway for MonaVie and spreading a number of falsehoods about Amway as they go.
Amway North America suffered for a year or two from the TEAM exodus, but is now going from strength to strength (double digit growth in the past year) and is generating virtually no complaints about bad practices. Sajeev Nair – it may hurt for a bit, but I suspect Amway India won’t miss you. All the best with MonaVie.