Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A8

October 30, 2014

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Business

Amway seeks cooperation, new inroads in China

By Ding Yining | October 30, 2014, Thursday | Print Edition

AMWAY Corporation president Doug DeVos said the company will continue to drive dialogue within the direct selling industry so that it can become more transparent and better accepted by the public.

At the same time, he said the world’s biggest direct-selling company remains upbeat about its business performance in China and hopes to leverage new opportunities brought by Internet technologies and e-commerce to expand its influence.

DeVos was recently elected chairman of the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations and will succeed his predecessor in November.

The WFDSA was founded in 1978 and has been promoting the healthy and legitimate development of the business globally.

Currently there are about 50 companies in China with direct selling licenses, and DeVos said he expects a unified platform will be set up in the future so that different parties will be able to share lessons with each other.

“The trend for the direct selling industry is good and it’s been growing and remains very strong and very global,” DeVos said in an interview with Shanghai Daily.

“Our efforts are to continue to promote the industry and make sure we remain transparent to the public and make sure everybody understands our business model.”

DeVos admitted there’s misunderstanding about the industry in the public mind, and the task is to simplify the message and promote understanding.

“We need to spend more time on the similarities of the direct selling industry with other companies. For example, we have great products, and we keep spending on research and development, and we also put focus on product quality and innovation, which is no different from other great companies.”

DeVos said the firm would continue its efforts to find new ways to tell its story in different ways, especially given that direct selling is a relatively new form of business model and the market is still developing. China is displaying a more open attitude toward the direct selling industry compared to 20 years ago when Amway first entered the country, he said.

The market is more developed and consumers have more options to choose when and where they shop. They also more easily accept new products, so it remains a challenge for Amway to stay innovative and competitive in offering new products to the market, said Audie Wong, president of Amway China.

DeVos said the company’s strategy is to remain the largest direct selling company in the world but said he’ll remain cautious about its past achievements.

“We want to keep challenging ourselves to be better since we’ve learned that our past success is the greatest risk to our future and we have a lot to learn,” he said.

China has great growth potential and DeVos reiterated that China remains a strong growth opportunity for Amway.

From the WFDSA’s perspective, DeVos said that it has been collecting data about industry globally that can be shared to develop a common message to make it simple for the public to understand how the industry works.

It’s an ongoing effort to keep developing that data and information and to build transparency and confidence within the industry.

An industry association is essential for companies to gather and discuss common issues, and it will help individual companies to rise to a higher level of performance. Moreover, it helps provide a common perspective while dealing with governments for regulation purposes.

“Many of these collaborations are already happening today, and direct selling companies are also engaging with governments on various levels. It’s only a mater of time before it takes a formal form,” he added.

DeVos said the ultimate purpose for pursuing these goals is to allow consumers to be better protected so that they’re more informed about the industry as a whole.

Talking about the challenges brought by the booming Chinese e-commerce market to the company and the direct selling industry, he said that the company will continue to use technology to better support its sales force with more detailed product information to sell to consumers.

“We have always been using the technology to strengthen our business, for example, to use new technologies to allow our sales people to better demonstrate our latest products,” he said.

“At the same time, we also want consumers to keep in mind that genuine Amway products can only be pruchased at our authorized stores and sales staff.”

Business


 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend