• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Amway TV ad

Status
Not open for further replies.
timhau said:
For some reason, a disproportionately huge number of the people in WinCapita, the largest economic fraud in Finnish history, were evangelical Christians from some of our numberous small sects.
Click to expand...

But religion tells you a lot about someone's ethics. So, if you're a Christian you just know that other Christians are trustworthy.

And so it goes. The Turkish community in Holland got hit badly last year.
You know, by a nice bearded gentleman claiming real Islamic values.

Wow, make 10% a year in an Islamic investment fund that also sends lots of money to homeless orphans in Gaza? Sign me up!
 
I have a question: Do you know of anyone who has become wealthy only by selling Amway products without developing any "network" at all ? Given the advertised supreme quality of the Amway products, this should be perfectly possible.
 
Can you name anyone who has become wealthy in any consumer product business by only doing personal retailing by themselves?

Most succesfull business do so through expanding their sales staff and outlets to increase volume. Opening new outlets and paying sales stuff cuts down on your profit margins, but it's hoped the increase in sales volume will offset the loss in per-sale profit. The exact same principle applies with Amway.

If you're a great salesperson and were interested only in personal retail sales then you'd be much better off in a "big ticket" sales business such as real estate where the per-sale profit was higher. Of course, as soon as you stop selling, then your income would stop. A smart person might look at starting their own real estate business and recruiting and training other sales folk to sell the real estate for them and move from personal selling into more of a training/management role and getting a percentage of the overall sales of their real estate business. Again, same principle applies.

Having said that I do know folk who makes solid incomes from retailing alone with Amway products.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Bump for IceRat....

As long as you've decloaked, how abou it? Want to answer NT's questions?
Click to expand...

Why? Do you seriously believe that whether I'm making money or not makes a difference? It only does if anyone is claiming nobody makes money with Amway. In which case, yes, I make money from Amway and have for a decade. I haven't been actively building the business at all for some time, working on other projects. Gee, guess that brainwashing just ain't very effective :cool:
 
Eddie Dane said:
Presumably this stuff has to end up with a broad base of end consumers. Who the hell are these people?
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here? Are you implying that because you don't know who buys the products, then nobody does? :confused:

Eddie Dane said:
The Amway system doesn't focus on the product at all.
Click to expand...

On what basis do you make that claim? Amway has 13,000 employees including thousands of R&D staff working on developing great products. Profit comes *entirely* from the sale of these products.

Today's consumers demand great stuff for little money and as far as I can see the Amway system can only lead to mediocre products with lots of middlemen.
Click to expand...

That makes no logical sense to me. Profit only comes from product sales. Longevity and success in product sales only come from having happy consumers. Happy consumers can only come from having great products.

Amway's been around 50 years, is one of the world's top retailers, leads nutrition sales globally, is one of the top 5 in prestige cosmetics and top 10 in all skin care and cosmetics, ranked #1 in some markets. Clearly there's longevity and success.

How could this be achieved through mediocre products?

Where are these Amway products supposed to go? Sold via Tupperware party model? it sure doesn't end up in my local supermarket.
Click to expand...

Not exactly the Tupperware party model, no, but yes sold through direct selling.

Do the Amway sales people end up with a garage full of b-quality detergent?
Click to expand...

Amway's primarily a healthy & beauty company and has been for more than a decade. As for the detergent, I'd venture to suggest you've never tried it. It's not the cheapest, but it's certainly not "b-quality". Indeed Consumer Reports rated it #1 a few years ago, scoring 13% higher than the next best.

And as for "a garage full", that raises another point about "mediocre products" - Amway offers a money back satisfaction guarantee on everything. You can buy the detergent, use the whole package, tell Amway you didn't like it, and they'll give you your money back.

Seriously, apply some logic. They've had that policy for 50 years. How could they still be in business if the products weren't good?

IMHO people who fall for this really didn't think it through.
Click to expand...

IMHO you haven't thought it through or are badly misinformed.
 
Last edited:
I sort-of miss the door-to-door salesmen that were so common when i was a kid. Some of them tried so hard, with their vaccuum cleaners; brushes; knives; encyclopedias, make-up kits, and so on. My dad would torture them with embarrassing questions. My mom would be kind to them, and never buy the stuff.

Its like a lost part of Americana. Is Amway still doing door-to-door sales?
 
icerat said:
Why? Do you seriously believe that whether I'm making money or not makes a difference? It only does if anyone is claiming nobody makes money with Amway. In which case, yes, I make money from Amway and have for a decade. I haven't been actively building the business at all for some time, working on other projects. Gee, guess that brainwashing just ain't very effective :cool:
Click to expand...

I think it makes a huge difference. Care to prove it and post an adjusted income number?
 
And for the record I know there are many people that make money, just not much off the products. They make it off of the "tools" and "functions" (brainwashing materials).
 
icerat said:
It's not even close to a pyramid scheme. By definition a pyramid scheme is something where you make money by recruiting people. For any given sales volume, recruiting people in Amway will cost you money, not make you money.
Click to expand...


So the more people you recruit, the more money you lose? How does that work?

Sounds like the best way to make money is to never recruit anyone.
 
Last edited:
Bob Klase said:
So the more people you recruit, the more money you lose? How does that work?

Sounds like the best way to make money is to never recruit anyone.
Click to expand...

Correct. You are making money for those above you in the pyramid who control the "tools and functions" though. That business is a nice inverted pyramid (those at the top get the most per unit those at the bottom get zero).
 
icerat said:
Seriously, apply some logic. They've had that policy for 50 years. How could they still be in business if the products weren't good?
Click to expand...

Not relevant. Cite homeopathy as an example.

Linda
 
NewtonTrino said:
Correct. You are making money for those above you in the pyramid who control the "tools and functions" though.
Click to expand...

Making money for those above you does not translate to losing money yourself. The question was 'how does recruiting people lose you money?', not 'how does recruiting people make money for those above you?".

Certainly most people in Amway lose money. But the money lost (for example, gas in driving around to meetings or driving to people's house to try to recruit them) is the same whether you actually recruit them or not.
 
So, how do the products reach the consumer in the end?

And what kind of products are we talking about?
 
Bob Klase said:
Making money for those above you does not translate to losing money yourself. The question was 'how does recruiting people lose you money?', not 'how does recruiting people make money for those above you?".
Click to expand...

In general, recruiting people doesn't "lose you money". If you own a store and you employee someone, you have to pay them either a salary or sales commission. If you sold 10 units before employing them, and 10 units after employing them, then your profit will be down because your expenses are up.

Does this mean through employing them you "lose" money? Not usually, because you'd hope to sell more. Selling 20 units for $3 profit each will make you more money than selling 10 units for $5 profit each.

Same applies for Amway. If you sell a product to a customer yourself, your markup is generally somewhere between 30% and 55%. If you "recruit" someone and they do the sale instead of you, then the markup you earn will generally drop to between 3% and 22% (US figures) - the salesperson needs their commission! So why recruit? Two people can do more sales than one. 3% on the sales volume of 20 people is probably more profitable than 55% of the sales volume of one person.

Certainly most people in Amway lose money. But the money lost (for example, gas in driving around to meetings or driving to people's house to try to recruit them) is the same whether you actually recruit them or not.
Click to expand...

Most people "in Amway" don't go to a single meeting or try to recruit a single person - heck a large number never even buy in products after joining. You can argue they "lost" money because they paid a membership fee (and that's not even true in some Amway markets), but then they got did exactly what they paid for - the right to buy the products at a cheaper price, and the right to market and resell them. They "lost" money in the same sense you "lose" money if you sign up for a gym membership and then never go. Sure you wasted your money, but it's a bit harsh to blame the gym! Especially in the case where the gym offers to give you all your money back if you just ask.
 
fls said:
Boiron.

Linda
Click to expand...

Have you got a link to their satisfaction guarantee? On resellers sites I've found so far it has disclaimers -

•Item was received in damaged condition or was defective
•Incorrect item was shipped (other than what you actually ordered). Read more
•Item is in new condition with original packaging.
Click to expand...

ie it's not a satisfaction guarantee.

or

We will issue you a full refund for the cost of the product minus your shipping charges.
Click to expand...

ie you still have to pay shipping.

Amway organises and pays for shipping on any returns, zero cost to the customer - well, except an email or phone call asking for the return slip. Heck, the first time I returned something I didn't know the drill and I just posted it off myself. They refunded the product and my shipping - in fact they gave me more for the shipping than I paid! See ... who says you can't make money from Amway :D

PS having said that, you're mostly right. Customer satisfaction does not necessarily mean a product is any good, but then we're talking business here, where sales and customer satisfaction are key. One would expect that customer satisfaction is an indicator of whether a product works or not. Personally I would argue that many homeopathic products *do* work. "Placebo effect" doesn't mean no effect, and a customer wants the effect, they don't care so much about the mechanism.
 
Last edited:
Eddie Dane said:
So, how do the products reach the consumer in the end?
Click to expand...

How do you mean "reach"? Do you mean delivery, or do mean in terms of customer awareness?

And what kind of products are we talking about?
Click to expand...

Amway today sells virtually everything, which in my mind was actually a strategic mistake. They've refocused now back on to health and beauty products. Check out the main US site is probably the best way to see - http://www.amway.com
 
In my experience with them, Spamway sells products that are overpriced and not as effective as others in their class.

And as my late father who was duped into this related it to me; People who make money on Spamway only can make money by duping people into becoming their downstream agents in large numbers, and those people usually find the merchandise that they MUST buy some of each month is un-sellable no matter how hard they try to sell it. So, the success of Spamway is not about the sale of the products to consumers, its about the sale of products to bottom-level new dealers who almost universally fail and have their garages full of unsold product.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom