Saturday, September 08, 2007

Is it competitive? Honestly?

I know there's people reading this, and I am curious what type of people read (other than Amway/Quixtar). I got into it a bit with a person who I believe is an IBO HERE in the comment section. I hope I am misunderstanding this, but it would appear that GirlPower truly believes the corporation lowered the prices by reducing the quantity. After Quixtar reduced the portion, it now costs $22.60 for a 90 day supply, as opposed to $41.60 for a 180 day supply. Broken down with even simple Canadian math shows not a decrease, but an increase in price! Not including shipping. I hope I'm wrong, otherwise this person should not be in a business without supervision.

You can comment anonymously, but I just want to know one thing, and you can answer simply yes or no, anonymous or fake name, I don't care, nor will I challenge any opinion. I am simply curious.

Do you really and truly believe that Amway/Quixtar has competitive prices that would allow you to build a retail empire to sustain you and your family?

Friday, September 07, 2007

From Worse to Borderline Psychotic....

I don't know why I still get surprised at the complete nonsense that Amway/Quixtar perpetuates in order to make their business seem appealing, and to make it look as though they care about the issues that impact IBO's when trying to develop "their" business. (Point of order - I don't know whose business it is when an IBO signs up anymore, considering that Quixtar considers IBO's their property).

Well, the latest corporate slight of hand in regards to the painfully obvious (except to Amway evidently) issue of high prices is to - get this - not lower the prices, but to lower the amount you get in an order, thus lowering the prices.

I wish I was kidding.

I have absolutely no idea how in the hell you grow as a company to the size Amway has grown with this mentality, but since you're here, I'm going to take a stab at it.

The world is a smaller place now, much smaller for Quixtar/Amway after the falling out with Woodward et al. Amway has been able to get by on charisma, excitement, and what some would consider deception. Now, given that nothing can be kept quiet anymore (not even the deep dark secret of 3.4% of products retailed outside of IBO's) reality is screaming up the road like a locomotive while you have the Amway corporation pulling their wagon dead in it's track.

In a consumer age of better value, and retailers running higher volumes with lower markup, this just isn't going to work. Hype the products all you want, they may be good, but they aren't as good as the corporation thinks they are. The vast majority of the population isn't going to buy into this, thus making the "opportunity" again, doomed from the beginning. Period.

This is what happens in the 21st century when reality meets fantasy, and if Amway/Quixtar can't adjust better than this, they deserve to get bad reviews when people see it for what it is, which is a an absolute joke pretending it's not one.

It's kinda too bad, because if Amway/Quixtar was going to make MEANINGFUL changes to the products and pricing problems, now is the time. The issue of the AMO's and tools is completely separate, yet not.

If your products aren't competitive, you have nothing to save from the evil Darth Woodward. You will still fail as a corporation, and as an IBO.

Am I the only one who sees this? Where am I wrong? Ray Alexander says:

"
I think it is obvious ... there is a lot happening within Quixtar, and selling product is getting easier every day."

I call bullshit.

"BULLSHIT!"

Monday, September 03, 2007

What Is The Truth?

I was over at Crazy World blog and came upon an interesting post by the author, and it led to me posting an honest question at the Adatudes blog in lieu of a smarmy comment. Don't know if it's going to be "approved" or not, but I basically asked if there was any truth to that theory here.

What the message of the post essentially is suggests that Amway/Quixtar could be putting retail customer orders under platinums anonymously. One person even commented to say this may have happened to him, as he has received a bunch of customers with no names or shipping addresses.

What does that do? It eventually allows Amway/Quixtar to lay claim that there is actually a lot of retail sales going on, when there isn't.

Now, before we go any further, I am not saying this is going on. I'm also not saying this is not going on. What I am saying is that if it were going on, who would really be able to prove it? I mean honestly, Amway/Quixtar/Alticor is all privately held and accountable to nobody.

Remember how when IBO's are trying to lend credibility to the company, it's always pointed out to be a family run private company? Not always good, because they wouldn't be accountable to anyone, nor would they have to disclose anything they don't want to disclose. Obviously, they will share what is good, but until very recently, you never heard anything that was bad/negative spoken by the company. I mean seriously, after a completely dismal performance trying to pretend that none of the bad was going on, they finally grabbed a glove and got into the game. The fact that they waited so long to strategize how they were going to deal with it is very telling as to the veracity of the issues.

I never gave the privately held factor much thought until this PR campaign got into full swing, simply because
Amway/Quixtar/Alticor was never contributing one way or another.

If it is true, then I think that's pretty deceptive, and still avoiding the problem which according
Chuck Goetschel is high product prices.

I tend to agree, and that was the single biggest hurdle that I found when being involved in this in the 90's. Apparently, not much has changed.

If
Amway/Quixtar/Alticor were having ghost customers to buy retail, what would they have to gain by that? My opinion is that they'll be able to have false stats showing that retail does happen. This would come in handy for people sharing the opportunity with others, and oh, say, having something to show in court that proves that there is retailing going on.

Obviously if there is a significant jump in retail sales from 3.4% to 10%, something's rotten in the state of Denmark, and everyone would know that
Amway/Quixtar/Alticor is pulling something. Over 6% is a huge jump in a short time in many aspects of big business. But who could prove this is not happening? Nobody without full access at Amway/Quixtar/Alticor.

So I don't know if that's happening or not. Would it surprise me if it were revealed that it was happening? No, not really. Would it be addressing the real issues? No, not really. Would that be anything new to Amway/Quixtar/Alticor? Meh....

Do you think
Amway/Quixtar/Alticor would do that?

If you think they would, do you think that's being honest with the business, IBO's and future IBO's?

UPDATE:

I neglected to point out the original source of this theory. Here it is...