Slowly, the new IBO hear statements like "Make sure you buy the high PV/BV items - focus on nutrilite and artistry - these give you the maximum value for your money." Coming from an Indian background like mine, people neither used vitamins, nor high-end beauty products. Even if I were using vitamins, I would be using a basic one like centrum. So this is not "anyway" money I was spending before. I have to spend more money to buy the products. Then the IBOs start defending and justifying telling how much goes into each amway product. The truth is that the amway deal is full of deception and lies and you learn about it only as you learn more and more.
(Guys like Kumar claim that as you go up in the Amway business, all you see is more integrity and more honesty. I don't think so - if this is the case, then why did Larry Winters, John Crowe & Joe Markewicz leave BWW? High up in Amway is as ugly as high up anywhere else. I think the Gala group also has a bunch of issues, especially with highly egoistical maniacs like Kumar, Sugeet Ajmani and Vishal Jain. It is just a matter of time before the issues come out.)
Coming back to the 30% savings, here are two comparisons:
Comparison 1 - Omega-3
Nutrilite balanced health omega-3 (IBO cost: $16.57 for 90 soft gels)
vs.
Trader Joe's molecularly distilled odorless omega-3 (Retail: $8.99 for 90 soft gels)
Nutrilite has 150 mg of EPA and 150 mg of DHA per soft gel.
Trader Joes' has 400 mg of EPA and 200 mg of DHA per soft gel.
Moreover Nutrilite is not odorless, meaning some people (like me) get the bad smelling fishy burps and/or after-taste and smell. Trader Joe's product works better for me! In this case, Nutrilite's product is actually not as good in quality as Trader Joes. All the purification processes and quality control done by Nutrilite is also done by Trader Joes.
I am no genius, but if you do the Math, Nutrilite is actually 84% more expensive than Trader Joe's and has only half the omega-3 (and the fishy burps).
Let's say the IBOs again defend by telling, you can get money back with nutrilite and not with trader joes. Alright - let us say you are in that smallest of smallest minority who reaches the 25% level, hopefully by building a big group and not buying your way through... Then you get back
25% of $21.20BV = $5.30,
so your net cost is
$16.57 - $5.30 = $11.27,
so you are still paying 25% more for Nutrilite!
Comparison 2 - Conjugated Linoleic Acid
Nutrilite CLA 500 (IBO cost: $51.97 for 180 soft gels)
vs.
Trader Darwin's CLA (Retail: $14.99 for 90 softgels = $29.98 for 180 soft gels)
(Trader Joe's sells Trader Darwin's.)
Nutrilite - 500 mg CLA per soft gel
TJ - 740 mg CLA per soft gel
Again, Nutrilite has 48% less CLA per soft gel and costs 73% more...
Like Kumar says "Where is the mystery? The Math is here. The numbers are clear - they don't lie. You have an extremely high chance to lose lot of money in Amway. Moreover the business makes you a super-hypocrite by making you lie at every plan. As you keep telling the same lie over and over again, you believe it is the truth. All it takes is an honest and objective evaluation like what I have done here and being man or woman enough to admit that you were dumb to join the business!"
I should thank Amway for one thing. Before Amway I used to believe that I was very smart and intelligent. But now I know I am not really "that" smart as I thought, because if I were smart, I would not have joined Amway in the first place. Thanks to Amway for making me humble!
The 30% savings is because the full retail price of the goods is about 30% higher than the IBO cost. However, in many cases, the IBO cost is higher than the full retail price of similar or the same goods at other big retailers.
ReplyDeleteAdded to that is the fact that most non-Amway products sold via Amway are also usually more expensive than outside.
ReplyDeleteI once asked my upline whether the fuel additive really gives extra mileage. His answer was simply, "It gives me good PV for the money, so I buy and use it." Had he really been confident that the product worked, he would not have answered that way.
So true, even I thought that I was going to save some 30% on my daily use products only to be pressurized by my upline to buy nutrilite and artistry or the coreline products. And I ended up spending more money than I would have prior to joining this amazing business opportunity. Oh well, they say saving mentality doesnt make you a millionaire. I guess the spending like a millionaire mentality does and ofcourse theres always bankruptcy if you cannot find enough credit credits to max out trying to get to 7500 PV, LOL!
ReplyDeleteActually, being thrifty is a trait of many wealthy people. Showing off wealth is a trait of people who would like to be wealthy. LOL
ReplyDeleteIn BWW open meetings, a usual question asked during the plan is
ReplyDelete"Where do you do majority of your shopping?"
Prospects usually say "COSTCO".
Then the plan shower asks the prospect,"Why do you shop at Costco?"
The prospect says "To save money."
Then the speaker hits back saying, "Really? So your savings account should be having plenty of money now?"
The speaker has a point. People usually shop impulsively at Costco. Also you have to buy in bulk. I hate Costco anyway. (The only reason I was a Costco member for a year was to get in and do prospecting! I was the only guy who would walk out of Costco without any products in my hand.)
But the worse thing is if you shop in Amway, you won't do "impulsive" buying; you will do "compulsive" buying - after they program you to do 300 PV each month. Shopping at Costco you may have less in your savings account, but shopping from Amway you will have even less in savings and possibly accumulate credit card debt as well.
Not to mention in Amway, they expect you to pay for training so you can learn this wisdom.
ReplyDeleteI love Costco. Sure, you buy in bulk, but I onlt buy in bulk what I can use. For example, I don't buy fresh meat that often from Costco. I do love the 1/4 pound hot dog and bottomless coke for $1.50 at Costco.
Thanks for this post. I don't think anyone is "stupid" for falling for this shamtastic crapshoot, I think the problem is that Amway is able to pull these scams with no consequence. They play on people's hopes and dreams when they know it's a scam all along. That's unforgiveable.
ReplyDeleteSomething, I don't know what, needs to be done to strike pyramid schemes like this out of existence. People have enough to worry about everyday without having to be concerned that the program a friend probably referred them to is going to inadvertently clean out their coffers.
At any rate, blogs like this help to expose the truth so that less people will fall into the trap, so you're doing a great job at trying to out these crooks.