It has been a generation in the making, but this year Sam Rehnborg will see the full fruition of his father's cherished dream 33 years after his death
WHEN NEW REGULATIONS take effect on December 1 legalising direct sales in China, a bold new frontier will finally be totally opened to Amway.
Amway has operated on the mainland since 1992 and already counts it as a hugely important market. But the company's true potential there has been hamstrung by a government ban affecting its direct sales network, which is built on individual 'first-tier' distributors who both sell Amway products and recruit second-tier distributors. With each new tier generating another, the network expands exponentially.
Seven years ago, the Chinese government forced Amway to sell through retail stores only. It was suspicious of any organisation potentially even more organised than the communist party and also wary of similarly structured pyramid schemes that had fleeced recruits.
Although China's World Trade Organisation accession agreement requires that the ban be lifted, the enabling legislation that comes into effect later this year will allow Amway to recruit distributors but not sub-distributors. And although it would prefer to roll out fully fledged 'multi-level' marketing, the company has embraced the 'single-level' compromise as a promising first step.
There is great irony in Amway's protracted struggle to enter the China market on its own terms. For the Michigan-based company, established in 1958 as the American Way Corp, owes much of its success to the China dream of a 20th century US entrepreneur.
