Amway is not a pyramid scheme, it belongs to the ranks of direct selling. Of course, the earliest pyramid scheme deteriorated from direct selling. Direct selling: there are formal product sales, but they also rely on interpersonal relationships, but they don't make a living by cheating. They won't force you to join or accept them. They adopt the principle of voluntariness. Many people have bought Amway products themselves, and then choose whether to join them after experiencing them. MLM: There is no actual product. It depends on deceiving others (relatives deceive relatives, friends deceive friends) and then controlling others' freedom of life and forcing you to accept and join them to achieve your goal, so the two are different in nature. Definition of MLM: 1. The number of developers is the main source of income and does not provide substantive business or services; Second, using propaganda or promising high returns as bait, illegally raising funds by illegal assembly, making excuses or charging unequal and objective fees for products in disguise; Third, under the guise of selling products or providing services, engaging in illegal and criminal activities such as fund-raising fraud and other commercial fraud, using fraudulent means or even forcing transactions to collect money; To achieve the purpose of illegal possession of other people's property by similar behavior seriously disrupts the social and economic order and management order. Any element can be characterized as pyramid selling. Harmfulness of pyramid selling: disturbing social and economic order and affecting social stability and unity; It has triggered social riots such as the rise of social criminal cases and the death of family members. The characteristics of pyramid selling are mainly reflected in the fact that the ultimate rights and interests of most consumers or investors are not guaranteed. Let's compare MLM with normal marketing one by one, so that everyone can distinguish it. MLM: At present, most pyramid schemes in society charge so-called membership fees, joining fees, qualification fees, technology transfer fees, training fees, product promotion fees and so on. However, most of these items seriously deviate from the value at prices of several times or dozens of times, or even have no substantive services at all. According to the definition of the World Direct Selling Alliance, direct selling refers to selling goods and services in a face-to-face and unfixed way. Direct sellers bypass traditional wholesalers or retail channels and accept customers' orders directly. Direct selling is a branch and type of marketing. Compared with other types of marketing, it has two obvious characteristics. First of all, it sends information directly to users without media intervention. This includes business communication with consumers or enterprises, such as direct mail and email. Second, it focuses on special calling actions. This kind of direct selling focuses on tracking and evaluating users' positive reactions. Direct selling refers to the distribution mode in which direct selling enterprises recruit direct sellers, who sell products directly to the final consumers (hereinafter referred to as consumers) outside the fixed business premises. What is a direct selling enterprise? Direct selling enterprises refer to enterprises that are approved to sell products by direct selling according to regulations. What is a direct seller? A direct seller refers to a person who sells products directly to consumers outside the fixed business premises. On June 5438+February 1 day, 2005, China's "Regulations on Direct Selling Management" was promulgated. The term "direct selling" as mentioned in these Regulations refers to the distribution mode in which direct selling enterprises recruit direct sellers, who directly sell products to the final consumers (hereinafter referred to as consumers) outside the fixed business premises. Direct selling referred to in the Regulations is the first definition mentioned above. The similarity between the above two marketing models has greatly increased. Their similarity is that there is no store sales, and products or services are directly oriented to users without going through distributors. Here we give a clear concept of generalized direct selling: (direct selling) the way in which product manufacturers, producers or importers sell products or services directly to the final consumers. Direct selling, as its name implies, is direct selling, and the marketing method of directly providing products or services to consumers is the real direct selling. Our common sales methods with real direct selling significance are as follows: 1, store services, such as barbershops, and hairdressers serve customers directly. 2. The front and back kitchens, such as restaurants, provide meals and services directly to consumers from the kitchen to the restaurant. 3. In the front shop and back factory, such as a tailor's shop, the tailor provides clothes directly to consumers from the sewing room to the counter. 4. Entrusted processing, such as generator sets, is produced by the factory as required and directly provided to the power station. 5. Special industries, such as military factories that sell products directly to the military. After China banned illegal pyramid selling, people gradually began to use the word direct selling instead of pyramid selling. In essence, the "direct selling mode" is to reduce the circulation cost of products and meet the needs of maximizing customers' interests by simplifying and eliminating middlemen. In the non-direct selling mode, there are two sales teams, that is, manufacturers to distributors, and then distributors to customers. In China, direct selling is defined as a marketing activity in which manufacturers communicate directly with target customers on the basis of putting forward certain demands to the public, so as to achieve actual consumption. Direct selling has three elements: first, the support of public consumption consciousness; The second is the establishment and formation of one-to-one relationship; The third is on-site display and key promotion. Because direct selling directly faces customers, it reduces the storage area, eliminates bad debts, and has no additional cost and corresponding inventory brought by dealers, so it can protect the interests of the company and customers and accelerate the growth pace. In order to carry out direct selling, the company must first study the customer's needs, not competitors, and cut into the market by segmenting the market and providing heterogeneous products. Secondly, it is necessary to increase the tentacles of direct selling and maintain interaction with customers, such as online direct selling, e-commerce, DIY order taking and telephone direct selling. Thirdly, there must be scientific methods to manage the direct selling team and ensure the efficient operation of the sales team. Four essential elements of a direct seller: First, honesty is the most valuable thing. If you do something dishonest, then everything is out of the question. Only by being honest will others trust you, support you and help you. So be honest and communicate with people with sincere heart. Second, the responsibility of direct selling is necessary. First of all, you should be responsible for yourself, be worthy of yourself and not do unnatural things; Secondly, you should be responsible for others, such as your teacher, your partner, your team, your consumers, your relatives and people around you. Can't let them get hurt; Finally, to be responsible for society, direct selling is different from traditional marketing, whether it is health care products, daily necessities, online education ... the purpose is to bring positive influence to society and promote social development. Third, gratitude Only those who know how to be grateful will feel, treat and change the world with gratitude! Fourth, to repay a real enterprise, its real ultimate goal should be to repay society, change society, create value for society and make the future of the world better. Only enterprises that know how to return can survive and have their own corporate culture. So as a person engaged in direct selling, why not? If you don't understand, you can't help it. If you don't understand, you will be speechless. Jay Van Andel and Rechard M. Devos, the founders of Amway, were direct sellers of Nutrillte products in California. The founders of Nutrilite, Lee Mytinger and William Casselberry, created a unique sales plan at 1945, which is the basic model of today's MLM system. Its operation mode is roughly like this: the direct seller can get 7.5% discount for both of them. If you can absorb 25 people and each person buys a month's supply, you will become a "sponsor". At this time, his own customers and his distributors have to place orders directly with him. He can earn 35% profit from the sales he sells to customers, and the sales of offline distributors can reach up to 25%. When he and the offline dealers accumulated 150 customers, he became the "agent" at the top of the pyramid. If an offline dealer becomes an agent, he can take 20% of their sales. This method has four advantages:

(1) MLM can save marketing and advertising expenses;

(2) The price can be higher than similar items sold in other stores;

(3) MLM can develop many loyal customers who like to buy things from people they know;

(4) MLM companies can use more performance and higher commission to motivate their business personnel.

1959, Wen Ange and Dimit left Nutrilite Company to set up Amway Company to sell their own detergents. The pyramid scheme of Nutrilite Company was used and improved, and it was a great success.

In the 1960s, due to the excellent performance of Amway, some unscrupulous businessmen analyzed, studied, copied and imitated Amway's marketing system, and designed a pyramid scheme similar to Amway's marketing system to defraud consumers, which was the origin of the so-called "Mouse Club".

"Mouse Club" is the common name of "MLM Plan", which is a deteriorated "multi-level MLM". According to the Federal Trade Commission and The Wall Street Journal, the Rat Club was first founded by American William Patrick in California on 1964. At that time, the company was called "Holiday Magic Company", and its performance soared from $520,000 in the first year to $250 million in 1972 in just eight years. The "Good Line Products Company", which was established almost at the same time, is also the representative work of the "Mouse Club".

Isn't Amway a pyramid scheme?