Our primary research tool is the internet. There is no shortage of webpages related to Amway. Most of the 'reviews' are actually attempts to recruit you into a home business. After some sifting, we thought we'd share some of the more useful source information and give you our take on itAmway Scam Review - 10 Things To Know This post is from Should I join that which focuses on providing 'Honest Reviews On Internet Marketing Stuff'. It either confirmed our suspicions or agreed with our opinions. This post is a good starting point if you have just been recruited and want a quick overview of how Amway works. The information we liked included:Being in Amway Costs MoneyIf you want to be an 'active IBO' with Amway, then you need to meet your monthly minimum spend. As expected some distributors buy product they don't actually want for the sole purpose of remaining active. Some of them are now using things they never knew they wanted, others are building a stockpile of unused Amway product.
You Have to Know How to Sell and Very Few Distributors Turn a ProfitDespite what anyone in Amway tries to tell you, running your own Amway business is a sales job. You can not succeed if you don't have the sales skill to promote the products to consumers and the system to new distributors. Motivational Material Plays a Major RoleAmway has a huge collection of 'success stories'. These are recordings by people who have made it big in Amway. They explain how Amway changed their lives and set them on the path to financial freedom. I was briefly a member of Amway and my sponsor's upline became very upset when I refused to pay for a regular motivational CDs. (While I was being recruited, my sponsor loaned me some of his CDs so I got to listen to them). As expected, the motivational material is a big profit maker for those who are making money in the system. I'm sure that the success stories I heard were all true. The problem is that they build an unrealistic expectation of what is possible.
People hear these rags to riches tales and think 'hey that could be me'. Unfortunately very few of them will ever make any money at all. Even fewer will achieve financial freedom from Amway Joining Amway is extremely easy, making a profit in Amway is extremely difficult.Will You Make Money From Amway? This post is from Botstwana based Consumer Watchdog. This post looks at the numbers because as they say the numbers don't lie. This post is from May 2014, they looked at the income disclosure statement for Amway in UK. The numbers tell a familiar story:Most IBOs Make Very Little Money in AmwayIn 2013 IBOs, people who qualified to be Business Consultants in the UK earned an average annual income of GBP21,048. This falls short ofthe UK average annual income of GBP26,500. It is however substantially better than those Amway IBOs who were not business consultants, as their average income for 2013 was less than GBP1,300 .We are not surprised, Amway has not made the 2013 Income Disclosure Statement publicly available on their website.
However we found a copy for you.Remember Income is not profit. Even if a business consultant earned 21,048 in commission for 2013, this figure does not include the cost of being an Amway member. Remaining active is not cheap. Our own analysis of the numbers estimated that after expenses the average Amway IBO lost $1,176 per year. Our calculations used data from Amway USA from 2010Amway = Wrong WayThis is from a blog called Mikes Ramblings, this post takes a detailed look at Amway. Reading this confirmed for us that:Amway Does Not Remove the Middle ManA common myth with all network marketing companies, is that members are buying products at wholesale prices. It is true that Amway does not use supermarkets or traditional marketing and advertising methods. IBOs are buying directly from Amway, but they are not paying wholesale pricesIf you buy product from Amway, then part of the price you pay, goes toward paying commission to people above you in the network. In our previous post, we estimated that this represented at least 25% of the price of Amway products.
This post estimates that distributor mark up makes up 28% of the price.Amway gives you the opportunity to become a middle man, but it does not remove them. Network marketing redirects the cost of marketing and distribution through it's members. Rather than pay a supermarket and advertising company, they will pay you, if you can promote their products.Amway is Not a Source of Passive IncomeAnother big myth being spread by Amway promoters, is that it's a source of passive income. It's a business for Rich Dads, once you've got it up an running, you can relax and reap the ongoing rewards. This is at best a misconception, and at worst an outright lie. Amway requires ongoing work, and can not be done in just a few hours a week.In one of my more recent encounters with Amway, I was asked by a friend to meet his sponsor after work at a coffee shop. When the presentation got to the part where he told me that Amway would 'let me earn passive income, and give me both financial and time freedom to do whatever it is I want with my time' I asked him when he thought he'd reach that stage himself, after all he was spending a Wednesday evening trying to sell the system to me
, plus he was still working a normal job. I explained that for him Amway was not yet in the business owner quadrant, it was in the self employed quadrant. In Amway he didn't have a boss and he could work his own hours, but his income was not passive. In the cast of this meeting, and I'm sure many others, he put in hours of work for absolutely no income.Small note of cautionMaking reference to Rich Dads, and cash flow quadrants, may cause Amway distributors to become agitated. No matter how hard you try and explain to them that they are working, and their income is not passive, they've already been conditioned to believe their version of these things.Our Final SayIt is possible to make money in Amway, but it's very difficult and requires a lot of work. Before you sign up to become an IBO, bare in mind:Very few people generate a profit - only 0.3% of MLM members will turn a profit. In the early years, it is unlikely that you will make any real money from Amway. You might earn a commission cheque or two, but chances are your income will be less than your expensesYou can not succeed unless you aggressively recruit new members - the only way to be make money in Amway or any MLM, is to have a large number of people beneath you in the system.