Amway History

In April 1959 they created The American Way Association, later renamed the Amway Distributors Association, to protect the independent distributors.

In 1962, Amway became an international company, opening its first affiliate in Canada.

By 1963, sales were 12 times the first-year sales.

That figure doubled in each of the next two years, and in 1964 it reached $10 million.

By 1965, the company that started with a dozen workers employed 500 and its distributor force had multiplied to 65,000.

By 1967 Amway sales reached $50 million as Rich DeVos pioneered the “Selling America” campaign to inspire a new consumer based country.

It is not surprising that some items were not successful, for by 1968 the company was selling more than 150 products through its 80,000 distributors.

As vowed by Jay Van Andel the night of the 1969 disaster, Amway rebuilt the aerosol plant and went on.

Pyramid schemes attracted renewed public attention in 1972 when a South Carolina pitchman named Glenn Turner was convicted of swindling thousands through fraudulent cosmetic and motivational pyramid schemes.

Operations in the United Kingdom began in 1973.

A 1976 Harris poll of United States households found that 16% of the respondents had tried direct selling.

The Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS), with its hundreds of affiliated radio stations, was purchased in 1977.

A luxury resort and hotel complex on Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands was purchased in 1978, another amenity used to motivate Amway distributors.

In 1979 the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Amway was not a pyramid scheme, allowing Amway to continue their success and develop new and innovative business systems.

Since 1980 Amway had continued its international expansion.

Beginning in 1982, Procter & Gamble sued various Amway distributors for telling customers that the company encouraged satanism.

In 1983, after pleading guilty in the criminal case, Amway paid a C$25 million fine in an out-of-court settlement.

By 1984 seven of the eight children of the founders held administrative positions in the company.

De Vos explained that Amway’s inexperience, unfulfilled goals, and lack of profitability led to the sale of MBS, except for its satellite division, in 1985.

One MLM salesman, after working with many firms, was quoted in the June 1987 issue of Money as saying that he hoped his current firm will be the “Amway of the future.”

Perseverance and high quality goods resulted in 1988 sales of $536 million for Amway (Japan) Ltd., Amway's largest overseas subsidiary.

Amway and corporate raider Irwin L. Jacobs jointly acquired 5.5 million Avon shares, 10.3 percent of the company's stock, in 1989.

Amway de Mexico was established in June 1990 with headquarters in Monterrey and distribution centers in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Tijuana, and Juarez.

In 1991, for example, Procter & Gamble won a $75,000 judgment from a group of Amway distributors, who were accused of spreading rumors that Procter & Gamble's products were instruments of Satan.

Dick DeVos was named president in 1992, and Steve Van Andel was appointed company chairman.

Xardel, Dominique, The Direct Selling Revolution, Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993.

Public offerings of stock in Amway Japan and Hong Kong-based Amway Asia Pacific in 1994 proved a huge success, raising $6.7 billion.

Richard M. DeVos, Sr. and his wife gave the most money to Republicans, $1 million, during the 1996 presidential campaign while encouraging their Amway distributors to donate thousands of additional dollars.

In 1998 the company strayed far from its core business by teaming with Virginia-based Columbia Energy Group to sell natural gas and electricity in deregulated markets.

The founders of the Amway corporation established a new holding company in 1999, named Alticor, and launched three new companies: a sister (and separate) Internet-focused company named Quixtar, Access Business Group, and Pyxis Innovations.

Alticor, the private parent company of Amway, was established in 2000 and is run by the DeVos and Van Andel families in unison with the other company holdings including Access Business Group and Alticor Corporate Enterprises.

After virtually all Amway distributors in North America switched to Quixtar, Alticor elected to close Amway North America after 2001.

Corporate Citizenship Award - On November 08, 2005, the United States Chamber of Commerce awarded Alticor with the Corporate Citizenship Award in the category of International Community Service for the One by One Campaign for Children

According to Harvard School of Business, Amway is “one of the most profitable direct selling companies in the world”. Amway was listed on 27th Rank by Forbes in 2012 among the largest private Companies in the United States.

It goes on expanding till the present day and launches a $375 million manufacturing and R & D expansion globally in 2013.

In 2014, a Russian loyalty card program called "Alfa-Amway" was created when Amway joined with Alfa-Bank.