So you have most likely heard of Amway, I mean who hasn’t? It is the largest MLM company worldwide and has probably had an impact on most people. Maybe you have tried to make money with them, or maybe you have had a distributor try and sell you some products?
Let’s find out what Amway is about in this Amway review before you try them out!
Amway Review
Overall Ranking: 15/100
Price: $62 registration fee (and this must be renewed annually), optional $99.99 product starter kit
Website: www.amway.com
Table of Contents
Introduction: What is Amway about?
Amway (which stands for American Way) is probably the most successful, longest standing and well known multi level marketing company in the world. Amway was founded in 1959 y Richard DeVos and Jay van Andel.
The Amway product range includes the following:
- Artistry make-up and skin care range
- Nutrilife health range
- Satinique hair care range
- Body Blends body care range
- Glister Oral Care Range
- eSpring water purifier system
- Legacy of Clean laundry, dish detergent and surface cleaner range
- Pursue disinfectant range
- Atmosphere air treatment range
- iCook cookware range
There are a few ways to make money with Amway, you can sell their products to the public and of course being an MLM company your biggest focus will be recruiting others under you!
Amway Pros and Cons
Pros
- They have been around for a long time
- The products they sell are needed by everyone
- Support and training is provided (although the focus is really only in one place, more about this in the cons)
- Available in over 100 countries
Cons
- Huge amount of complaints for this company, both for the opportunity to make money and also for the actual product quality
- The products they sell might be needed by everyone, BUT at those prices you really can’t expect to sell much. We’ll take a look at the products again a bit later in this review.
- Support and training is provided, however the focus is not on the products at all. The focus is on referring people into Amway.
- There is no training on internet marketing
- This is an MLM opportunity and it is very hard to make money. MLM is just not suitable for everyone, in fact I believe it is only suitable for a very select few. Add to this that Amway’s compensation plan is a very tough one to crack, you will need to work incredibly hard and really go all out.
- It is very hard to qualify for commissions. To qualify to be paid you need to bring 100 PV (points value) in a month. This is $300, not easy for a newcomer to do right?
- Amway has what is called a “stairstep breakaway”. This means that once one of your down-lines reaches 7500 points it “breaks away”. When this happens your 30% commissions are taken away and you start to earn 4% royalties instead. If this down-line then drops below 7500 points you lose the royalties. This is not very nice at all is it?
- Market saturation could be problematic, there are apparently 3 million Amway IBO’s worldwide! Research shows that their is a complete lack of growth in the United States.
- Lots of negativity surrounding Amway and it is not easy to change someone’s perception once they have made up their mind about something.
How much does Amway Cost?
It costs $62 to register and then you need to renew again every year at $62. This includes some training and marketing materials to help you on your way. There is a 90 day money back guarantee.
There is an optional product starter kit you can purchase for $99.99 which will give you products and samples to share, it will also include 10 mini catalogs, some sample bags and tips to help you introduce your business to potential customers.
So what about the Amway Products?
I feel it is really important to look at the actual products very closely when investigating a multi level marketing opportunity. Without the products this is just a pyramid scam isn’t it?
It is a characteristic of MLM’s to have bad quality products that are incredibly over priced, and that nobody really bothers trying to sell because that is truly not the point of MLM is it? The real product is YOU, yes recruiting people to the program is the ultimate goal.
So what I do like about these products is that most of them are things that I already buy regularly which should make them really easy to sell right?
Well no, wrong on that count. Let’s have a look why!
Let’s look at their laundry detergent. $47.30? That’s insane!
Just to give you an idea of the pricing for a few items, lets pretend we are doing out monthly shop and we need some basic items for the home right? Just for fun to see how these amounts add up.
How does this look to you:
- $47.30 for laundry detergent
- $13.95 for fabric softener
- $10.00 for shampoo
- $17.60 for a bar of soap
- $16.50 for deodorant
- $12.85 for a toothbrush
- $12.00 for toothpaste
So this really is just a few things you might need during the month right? That comes to a grand total of $130.20. That is a pretty hefty price tag for just a few toiletries and some cleaning goodies!
You can give me your marketing pitch about how these products are so insanely great, the fact is that I just don’t care. I am not spending that amount of money, it is just not going to happen.
Is Amway a scam?
Apparently not, but really look at this. Insanely overpriced products for nothing special, recruiting is the order of the day… well you decide for yourself if this looks like something you want to try.
By the way, Amway has earned themselves the nickname Scamway.
My Verdict for Amway
What I haven’t shared with you in this review yet is that I bought into Amway about 15 years ago, yes I got suckered in and my experience really showed me what this was about.
So I got home from work one day and my friendly neighbor catches me by my car and says we just must do coffee! I’m taken by surprise and I feel all warm and gooey that she is taking an interest in me and trying to make friends. I accept and she tells me to bring my friend, you know the one that is always with me on weekends. We set a time for the coming weekend, I invite my best friend and off we go.
Once we are happily settled with our coffee and biscuits ready for a chin wag out comes a flipchart. I mean like whaaat? My friend gives me this strange look and I shrug. We’re trapped, you know we can’t just politely excuse ourselves right now. Oh well the biscuits are really tasty so whatever.
The thing is that I had never been exposed to MLM before and this woman made everything sound so incredible and of course easy. And yes you guessed it, I am always keen to earn a little more money. I’m not scared of hard work, I’m scared of not being able to earn money. Hard work? No problem, throw it my way with pleasure.
So yes my friend and I both signed up, paid our money and we were ready to get started. The problem was that nothing happened like the pitch we were given. Once we were in nobody mentioned products, it was like a swear word! No we must draw up lists of anyone and everyone we know… or even don’t really know. Hell if I have seen your face before great lets just corner you somewhere and give you our pitch.
This already made me uncomfortable, and my first real understanding came from my mother. Yes the cup of coffee thing to hook her in didn’t go so well! She knew all about Amway and rolled her eyes, sighed and told me she was so sad I had been suckered.
I felt like a downright idiot. I brought up my concerns with my sponsor and she just went on about how great Amway was and didn’t seem to hear my worries or care much.
As soon as I mentioned Amway to anyone they would clam up and get nervous and try to run for the hills. It was not long before I decided to do the same, cut my losses and run for it.
So this was my first (and thankfully last) experience with multi level marketing. I will never again be suckered into something like that again.
The tactics used are really tacky. It is not for me and it never will be.
Once again I need to remind you that this is my personal experience and not what everyone will experience. There are a lot of people that just love MLM and think it is the best type of business model. Just because I don’t like it and I will never be able to make money doing this doesn’t mean that you will fail, just be careful.
Do I recommend this? Duh no way!
Here is a video I found on Youtube that really shows how it felt to me being in Amway, perhaps some may find this video offensive but for me it was just spot on!
Are you interested to find a better way to make money? Have a look at my #1 recommendation instead!
Have you had any experience with Amway? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Hi Lynne,
Thanks for the good review of Amway, and the opportunity it does NOT bring to the unwary! We need more articles like this to stop the figurative bleeding that such companies are exposing people who often are just trying to find a way to make some supplemental income…
My experience has been with a company called Jeunesse, who wants to be the top MLM company in the world whioch Amway is now…Their tactics are the same, and many of the points you talk about are the same in that company.
My take is that MLMs in general are an unsustainable business model, and there will be many more losers than winners….It is those losers that can often ill-afford to spend the money that they prey on, so the winners at the top can continue to flash their life style and dream…
If the company focuses more on getting recruits than selling real products, because this way they guarantee sales to their own members, and money flowing up to top members, I shy away…More accurately, I run!
Hi Dave
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Amway and also MLM in general. We are of the same opinion all the way!
I’ll be honest here I have never heard of Jeunesse. Perhaps I should check them out and review them 🙂
Very good review! Very detailed. Very precise. Although I have never done the Amway opportunity. I did an offspring of it called… actually I forget. But this was back in 2003 or so. But I have always wondered what Amway looked liked. So thank you for the review.
I actually gave Amway more credit than they deserve according to your review. I thought the products were better. Even though I knew that most mlm are not made for the average person to succeed. Although they are some very good models of MLM out there that are more feasible.
Haven’t said that. I agree. Amway is not a scam. But it was hard looking at all the negatives . I have seen a lot better home business with not such a big name.
Happy New Year!
I’m glad you enjoyed my review of Amway. Yes some people succeed with it, but I just can’t see how. When I look at these MLM opportunities all I see with every single one is a long list of negatives and I struggle to see any positives. I try my best to be objective but the truth is I find that hard.
“I’m glad you enjoyed my review of Amway. Yes some people succeed with it, but I just can’t see how.”
“but I just can’t see how.”
Summarizes your character right there.
Hi James. I take it then that you love Amway and you are making a great full time income with Amway? Or are you still trying and begging your family and friends to sign up under you while they try and avoid you?
Honestly I find the whole Amway thing really sad. I don’t want to try and recruit people into some awful scheme like that with false promises of making great money. Yes that is my character 🙂
Have fun with Amway.
Aah, Lynne, what a shame that you had such a terrible, shady intro to network marketing! I had a similar experience years ago & also got put off Amway for life! However, its not true that all network marketing companies sell over-priced products & only focus on recruiting. I’ve been fortunate to come across product-driven MLM companies and sell gorgeous, affordable products. As a result I’m very pro MLM.
Hi Lauren, thanks for your feedback and letting me know how you feel. Yes I recall now that you said you are a Herbalife agent right? I am so glad you are having success with them and a pleasant experience… but ummm I will probably be writing a different opinion on them on this website when I review them!
So here’s something. When you first said you were a Herbalife agent I cringed because you are also in South Africa and you know I have the Kaboutjie online store and I had literally just published a post on how I feel about Herbalfie and whether it is safe for breastfeeding or pregnant ladies. I suggest you check it out and perhaps put down your opinion and if anyone wants to contact you to join up or purchase. It takes all opinions and I like to have both sides shared… plus I am not going to be signing up with Herbalife ever, no reason why you shouldn’t leverage that opportunity on my blog!
That website has a great readership and it was clear that lots of my readers disagreed with my opinion because I had a high unsubscribe rate on that post, which I did kinda expect. No reason to not share something because people won’t like my opinion right? Anyway, you could reach the people that totally disagree with me 🙂
This is why I am not a big fan of mlm companies. Their prices of their products are insane compared to what you can buy from your local store.
To pay $12.85 for toothpaste is out of this world. Maybe if their products where very unique, it could have made up for the price increase.
Hi Viljoen
Exactly, but the thing is how unique can toothpaste be to validate a cost of $12.85? I find the thought quite amusing really, like yes it has flecks of real gold in it…. that is why it costs so much!
Interesting. I would like to understand, are they manufacturing just cosmetic products, or a really wide spectrum of many products?
It seems like there are many cons against the pros which makes it a downeer for me.
Also 62 dollars starting price seems not so cool. But thanks for the review!!!
Hi Tyler
They have the cosmetics, skin care, oral care and air care ranges as well as cleaning products and then a water purifier system as well as an air purifier. Not such a great range.
Well I see that the Amway products haven’t changed much over the years. I too was suckered into Amway by my oldest sister back when I was in my early 20s, about 30 years ago. She got suckered in by a friend of hers. That was my first and LAST taste of any kind of MLM.
Now when I do reviews of so-called make money from home MLM opportunities, I think back to Amway and compare the new MLM with them. Why? Because a majority of the newer MLMs do not offer any kind of actual usable product. Even though Amway products are over-priced, they are of products that people use and not some BS selling program to recruit people to sell the same BS program.
My point is that, in knowing how hard it was to make money selling over-priced products that people use, how much harder will it be to sell a product that is about a program that has no value to a majority of the population? If an MLM doesn’t offer an actual usable product that ordinary people will use at a price that is reasonable, then why bother? My advice to people is move on to something that gives you a good return on your investment.
Hi Robert
You have really put it nicely there. Amway is so tough and that is with every day products that every person uses. Other MLM’s sell things that are not so commonly used. Not a great business model!
Hi, great review. I wasn’t familiar with Amway. I’d heard of it but never really bought anything or considered working with them.
I most certainly wouldn’t be rushing to work for them after your review. I cannot believe they have established a system where you lose your downline and then your royalties…OMG…I bet the top tier don’t lose theirs.
I am also still laughing at the insane prices for everyday items…man I think I’ll stick to KMart.
Thanks Lynne for a great article…ps do you know anyone who actually has made success with Amway or is it similar to most MLMs where unless you’re in at the start you basically earn nada?
Hi Jason
Pleasure, I am glad you enjoyed this review.
I have seen lots of people online that claim to have made lots of money with MLM‘s, however these are all people I don’t know personally that are trying to recruit! I have never met someone in person that makes a decent income with MLM.