Friday, February 15, 2008

QUIXTAR: Quixtar Announces Fifth Consecutive Year of Billion-Dollar Sales

Original Source

Quixtar Announces Fifth Consecutive Year of Billion-Dollar Sales

Independent Business Owners earned $363 million in bonuses and incentives

ADA, Mich., Feb. 15, 2008 - Quixtar Inc. today announced fiscal 2007 sales of $1.072 billion, the fifth consecutive year in which the company surpassed the billion-dollar mark. The results represented a slight decline from the previous year's sales of $1.12 billion, which were the best in Quixtar's nine-year history.

Results were affected minimally by actions the company took to terminate the business of a few Independent Business Owners in August of 2007 after they refused to change unacceptable practices.

Quixtar Independent Business Owners (IBOs) earned $363 million in bonuses and other incentives for their business efforts in 2007, which also included $70.1 million in sales at Quixtar's Partner Stores.

In 2007, Quixtar launched a new line of nutritional snacks, juices and supplements for busy families under the Simply Nutrilite™ brand, as well as the new Artistry® essentials line of skin care and cosmetics products. Quixtar.com was redesigned to improve usability and to better support IBO sales efforts, and Quixtar University was launched to provide online and aided sales and brand training to help IBOs build profitable businesses.

Since 1999, IBOs have earned nearly $2.6 billion based on total Quixtar sales of more than $7.86 billion and Partner Store sales of more than $577 million. Driven by its strong Health and Beauty brands, Quixtar again was ranked #1 in online Health and Beauty sales by Internet Retailer's "Top 500 Guide" in 2007, and 22nd overall in e-commerce.

"Our business is on the right path at the right time," said Jim Payne, Executive Vice President - Amway & Quixtar. "New leadership was brought in this year with Steve Lieberman, the new Managing Director for Quixtar who joined us in August. We also recently hired a new VP of Sales, Sandy Spielmaker, who will have a tremendous impact on our sales team."

Plans were announced in 2007 to change the business opportunity brand in North America to better leverage and align with Amway's $7 billion global business.

"We're working with IBOs to properly position our North American business within the context of the larger Amway global brand," said Lieberman. "To better support IBO efforts, we are focusing in particular on how consumers interact with our products and our brands."

"Our goal is to provide the best business opportunity in North America," said Lieberman. "From products and IBO compensation to sales training and marketing programs, everything we do in support of our IBOs is being examined to ensure we achieve that goal."

ABOUT QUIXTAR
Based in Ada, Mich., Quixtar Inc. is part of the Alticor group of companies, founded by the DeVos and Van Andel families. Alticor is led by Steve Van Andel, Chairman, and Doug DeVos, President. Global sales for the Alticor group of companies, which include Amway, Access Business Group, Alticor Corporate Enterprises (ACE), and Quixtar, exceeded $7.1 billion in fiscal 2007.

Quixtar currently supports independent businesses in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and various trust territories and independent island nations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and Caribbean Sea. Quixtar Canada Corp. headquarters are located in London, Ont., Canada.

5 comments:

Tom Morris said...

"Results were affected minimally by actions the company took to terminate the business of a few Independent Business Owners in August of 2007 after they refused to change unacceptable practices."

That only happened during the last quarter of the year (assuming a calendar year). However, at the beginning of the article, they mention the fiscal year. I believe that Quixtar's fiscal year starts in September. If that is the case, they are blaming the slight downturn on less than a month (didn't Orrin leave on August 9th?). Even at that, for at least a month, the leadership was encouraging people to continue to sign people up in Quixtar.

Tom Morris said...

"Plans were announced in 2007 to change the business opportunity brand in North America to better leverage and align with Amway's $7 billion global business."

I'm beginning to think this move was to sweep Quixtar under the rug and not have to report separate sales results for Amway vs Amway North America (since Amway North America is going down in flames).

Anonymous said...

Jim Payne(in the rear)keeps on spinning the news until it sounds right by him. "Results were affected minimally by actions the company took to terminate the business of a few Independent Business Owners in August of 2007 after they refused to change unaccepted practices." Fiscal year ended Aug 31st. I wonder how Mr. Payne will spin the numbers next year, when they are down significantly. Steve

Anonymous said...

Fiscal year announced is the End of Dec. 2007. That said,

"Results were affected minimally by actions the company took to terminate the business of a few Independent Business Owners in August of 2007 after they refused to change unacceptable practices."

I don't agree with that statement. I don't know what it did to the bottom line. That isn't the point.

Q/A decided to change directions without the support of the IBOAI in June and July. By August, Leading IBOs were willing to leave. The rest is history.

Anonymous said...

If fiscal year end Dec 31st, I stand corrected.
Steve