Quixtar to change name back to ....Amway!
In a move that has surprised both Quixtar distributors and the IBOA, the privately held Ada, MI-based direct sales giant, Alticor, will dump the 7-year-old Quixtar and Alticor names over the next 18 to 24 months.  The Grand Rapids Press  reported the news on June 14, 2007.    According to the IBOAI website, the website for the  Amway/Quixtar distributors' board of directors, whose members are made up of the heads of the lines of affiliations (king pins), the board was never notified of the coming name change and that they were quite disappointed that they were not consulted.  Unfortunatly I can no longer find that article on the IBOA website. 

IBOAI Board Reacts to Alticor Transition Plans

"Your Board Shares Your Surprise

You should know this news came as a shock to us, too, in the form of a surprise announcement at a Founders Council meeting a few days ago. We were not consulted ahead of time and were not part of the decision. We are sorting through the details and trying to figure out how this affects all of our businesses."

The current title IBOAI Board Comments on Alticor Transition Plans.

http://www.iboai.com/MediaCenter-QuixtarAmway.asp

The move to dump the Quixtar name comes as part of a global review of business practices aimed at restoring consumer confidence.  The Quixtar name replaced the Amway name in North America in 2000 as it moved to an Internet based platform in the wake of falling sales and bad press about Amway from the Internet.    Many saw the name changes in 2000 as an effort to hide from the reputation of the pesky Amway distributor more keen to sign people up for the "business opportunity" and sell them motivational materials than to sell expensive products, such as Amway's premium Nutrilite vitamins and Artistry cosmetics.   Critics have long said the prices of the Amway products are so high that they cannot be competitively retailed by distributors.  Distributors end up consuming most of the products themselves since they can find few other people to sell them to. 

Many IBOs have complained they are asked to spend more on training materials and seminars than they possibly can make selling products and signing up other IBOs.

All this comes in the wake of several international incidents, which is calling attention to Amway's business practices and the practices of their lines of affiliation, which sell tens of millions, if not hundreds of dollars in motivational and training supplies to Amway distributors.

Last year, China banned Amway's pyramided compensation scheme, where distributors could earn money from the sales of their downline distributors.  Distributors are supposed to only earn commissions from the sales they personally make.    The allure of the Amway business is that you just need to recruit other sales people exploiting the pyramided compensation system where bonuses are leveraged from the sales of those recruited into the scheme. 

In the United Kingdom, Amway recently stopped registering new distributors and banned the sale of unapproved training materials and paid seminars, among other measures, in the face of a government crackdown.    Prominent lines of affiliation such as Britt World Wide and Network 21 are under investigation in the UK.   The head of Network 21 is also an IBOA board member Jim Dornan. 

On July 19, 2007 Amway Enterprises in India also suffered a major setback, the AP High court has decided not to interfere with the action initiated by the CID against the business activities of the company.  A division bench of the AP High Court, comprising Chief Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy on Thursday dismissed the writ petitions filed by Amway India Enterprises, challenging the action of the state government in conducting raids and laying siege to its premises.

Amway India contended that the business of its company does not fall within the definition of Money Circulation Scheme as defined in Section 2 (C) of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.  Meanwhile, sleuths of CID are taking steps to carry out the further investigation on Amway.  “The HC judgment has paved way for further investigation into Amway business affairs,” a senior CID official said. However, D.V.S.L. Deepak, representative of  Amway, said, “Though we are all disappointed, the distributors in AP are confident that Amway will over come this phase soon. We have been able to carry our business.”

No doubt the name change will be a sales boom to the Lines of Affiliation as the current materials using the name Quixtar will be obsoleted and have to be replaced with materials once again using the Amway name.  I can't wait to hear Ron Puryear announce to his group that the name Quixtar will never be used again from a World Wide stage.    I've already prepared the Kate message for him.   Listen to it.....audio.gif (922 bytes)

Here can be the new wording for the WWDB Direct Approach recruiting sheet question: "Is this Quixtar" you will be able to answer "No. As a matter of fact myunderstanding is that Quixtar no longer has operations in North America".   Ha Ha!!