TEAM: Fanista Analysis

Original Source

TRAITOROUS ACTIONS ACCUMULATE @ ALTICOR
Sunday, November 25, 2007

As many of you already know Alticor unveiled its latest business, www.Fanista.com, last Tuesday. Certainly Alticor is free to start and invest their money where they chose. However, I would purpose that Fanista is yet the latest assault on IBOs across the globe. Despite Alticor's company line of how they are making Amway / Quixtar the best opportunity ever for IBOs, evidence suggests otherwise. In my view Quixtar is leaving IBO's in the dust, but intend on milking them for all they are worth on the way out.


The last year Alticor has clearly undermined the IBO distributor and his / her exclusive product pipeline. Nutrilite and Artistry products can now be had at various sites on the web. A company so concerned about contracts appear to breach the IBO agreement of exclusivity. Alticor defends this by passing on volume to an IBO near to the purchaser. How do you know this is happening? How long will this continue? This practice appears to be at the discretion of the purchaser. I say this is about as solid as the whole Quixtar isn't Amway story. That is this is what we do until it isn't convenient anymore. The resurrection of the Amway name in North America is certainly the largest kick in the teeth to IBOs and needs no further explanation as to the damages it will cause.

So what is Fanista? Fanista is an online business that sells CDs, DVDs, and books. Fanista is free to join and relies on it's members to rate various media and refer their friends. Members are paid when their referrals purchase items. Fanista calls this CIC or Common Interest Commerce. Whatever they want to call it, there is not really any money to be made. By all accounts Daniel Adler, the lead person at Fanista, is a talented and well connected Hollywood insider. Does he know that he has possibly committed career suicide by aligning himself with Amway? This guy may have went from the hippest guy at the party to the pariah. Let's think about it.... if Amway ain't cool in Grand Rapids it certainly ain't cool in Hollywood.

Fanista's sole financial backer is Alticor. Alticor calls Fanista an investment I say they own it. Here are the things I find most interesting about Fanista. First of all this Fanista idea was planned in secret for at least the last two years. According the article link below, authored by Chris Knape of the Grand Rapids Press, Alticor's vice president of corporate enterprises Jim Weaver said they first invested in Fanista in April 2006. It would seem rather unethical to plan an entirely new enterprise which directly competes with existing Quixtar partners stores and IBOs. The article also stated the following:

A spokeswoman for Quixtar said the company's distributors have been notified about Fanista and are free to join, but the company is not doing anything special to get Amway distributors involved in Fanista yet.

If there was any bombshell to the Fanista reveal it was Alticor's allowance of simultaneous duel membership at Fanista and Amway / Quixtar. Fanista is without question a multi-level marketing plan with what they call uplinks and downlinks. Fansita is also clearly in direct competition with Quixtar by selling exact and overlapping merchandise. So why would it be acceptable for distributors to be a part of Fanista? Wasn't Alticor / Amway / Quixtar just doing their best to put a halt to the TEAM's information and events under the premise that TEAM was a competing business? Alticor's hypocrisy and apparent selective enforcement of non-competition elements will come back to bite them. Is this yet the latest blunder committed by the arrogant Alticor?

Many of you were wondering if Alticor had learned its lesson on pricing and fixed things with Fanista. The short answer to this question is no. However, even though pricing isn't optimal at Fanista it is nothing like the outright swindling at Quixtar. Here are three additional excerpts from the Grand Rapids Press article.

A scan Tuesday of the site, which is still in a beta-testing phase, showed prices of seven of eight featured CDs on Fanista ranged from 1 cent to $4 higher than the same items on Amazon.com.
Five of eight Fanista featured DVDs were less expensive at Amazon. two were cheaper by a penny at Fanista. One featured DVD,
The Rocketeer," was 51 cents cheaper at Fanista.
Adler said Fanista will constantly assess pricing, but it believes the price issue will become less important if Fanista provides a compelling place for people to connect.

The last bullet point would indicate Adler is spending a little too much time with the Ada brain trust if he believes price doesn't matter.

Alticor's actions toward IBOs is undermining and traitorous. I find it impossible to believe Alticor is conducting business in the interest of IBOs. Every new idea, and step they have taken has resulted in a less stable and less sustainable business for IBOs. Whether it is the Amway name change, the fierce refusal to have competitive prices, undermining the exclusive product pipelines, or creating whole new companies, make no mistake these are all attacks on the IBOs existence. Fanista members will never create any sort of wealth nor will there be any of those expensive bonus payments, or Peter Island, Diamond Club and Achiever trips. There also won't be IBOs asking for competitive pricing. Let's face it, life for Alticor will be much simpler without all of you IBOs. If that is their business decision it is too bad they aren't men enough to come clean and negotiate a payout. Instead they will milk you for all your worth, methodically destroy your businesses, and then without warning pull the plug. If you think this sounds crazy, just say these two words to yourself a few times.... Woodward..... Brady...... Woodward..... Brady..... If these guys were disposable you all are.
Article by Chris Knape cited above


Posted by The IBO Rebellion at 3:43 AM