Private | |
Industry | Multi-level marketing |
Founded | 1959 |
Headquarters | Ada, Michigan, USA |
Area served
|
Worldwide |
Key people
|
Steve Van Andel Doug DeVos Jim Payne Bill and Peggy Britt Ron and Georgia Lee Puryear Brad and Julie Duncan |
Parent | Alticor |
Website | Amway.com |
Amway North America (formerly known as Quixtar North America) is an American worldwide multi-level marketing (MLM) company, founded 1959 in Ada, Michigan, United States. It is privately owned by the families of Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel through Alticor which is the holding company for businesses including Amway, Amway Global, Fulton Innovation, Amway Hotel Corporation, Gurwitch Products, Hatteras Yachts, and manufacturing and logistics company Access Business Group. After the launch of Amway Global originally operating under the name Quixtar, it replaced the Amway business in United States, Canada and the Caribbean, with the Amway business continuing to operate in other countries around the world. On May 1, 2009, Quixtar made the name change to Amway Global and fused the various different entities of the parent company.
Amway Global is also a member of the Direct Selling Association and the Better Business Bureau.
Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel initially founded the Ja-Ri Corporation, a multi-level marketing distributorship for Nutrilite products, in 1949. Ja-Ri was incorporated in 1959, and changed its name to "Amway" (American Way) in 1963. As of 2012[update], Amway operates in more than 100 countries around the world. In 1999, the founders of the Amway corporation launched a sister Internet-based company named Quixtar. The Alticor corporation owns both Amway and Quixtar, plus several other concerns. Quixtar replaced the North American business of Amway in 2001 after the majority of the distributors moved to Quixtar, with Amway operating in the rest of the world.
The move unified the various Amway companies worldwide. "We're now reintroducing our brands in North America, moving away from Quixtar and going back to the Amway name", said Steve Lieberman, managing director of Amway Global. "We decided there were a number of roads we had to go down in order to recreate awareness for a brand that, quite frankly, a lot of people felt had gone away."