Friday, January 25, 2008

Amway Testimonials - Email Problem

We have just discovered a technical problem with the email address for submitting testimonials on the ozamwayvictims.com website. It appears that we have not been able to receive emails for the last couple of months at least.

So if anyone has submitted a testimonial in the last couple of months and has been wondering why it has not been put on the website, now you know why! Our apologies.

Until the email issue is resolved, we kindly ask those people who have sent us their story to resubmit them by emailing us at ozamwayvictims@yahoo.com . Of course, we also welcome any new visitors to the site or this blog to submit their stories at this address also.

Friday, January 4, 2008

The Trouble with Buying through Amway - Part 2

In Part 1 we discussed what we consider the drawbacks of buying through Amway. Those were buying in bulk, inconvenience, non-perishable items only, product range and prices. In this blog post, we'll touch on inconvenience and non-perishable items together as they are both interconnected.

Shopping online is no doubt a very convenient method of purchasing products, millions upon millions of people do just that every single day. Amway being an online shopping site also, it's IBO's often sell Amway as being convenient and time saving. Why trudge down the supermarket aisles when you can order your products from the comfort of your home and have them home delivered right? Sure sounds good, but when you look at it closely, shopping with Amway can turn out not to be very convenient at all. Here's why we think this is so:

Firstly, if your expecting to buy ALL your groceries and household items through Amway (sold by IBO's as "redirecting your spending", you will find that this is simply impossible. Amway only sells products that are non-perishable. So unless, you don't eat any fresh meats, fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, baked breads and the like and also frozen foods, then you will still have to go to the supermarket or other fresh food outlets to buy these goods as you would normally do. Now, there are people who may indeed not eat any fresh foods whatsoever, but seriously, these would be in the absolute minutest percentile of the population. So for everyone else, instead of a doing a full grocery shop, your still having to do maybe a half shop and saving yourself what, 15-20 minutes? Big deal.

Secondly, when you purchase something online, most sites will dispatch your order the same or the next day. However with Amway, for regular deliveries, your order will be dispatched on the same day of each week, depending on where you live. So if your area's dispatch day is say Wednesday, then whatever you order from that day will not be dispatched until the next Wednesday, with your order arriving after 1-2 days. Who wants to wait for up to a week for their products? Oh, but you can get them delivered by Express, it costs extra of course. Regular delivery is $6.95 (plus $1 for each bulky item) and Express is $14.95. If you've placed your order by phone or fax then add $3 to the delivery charge also.

Nope, if we need a item, we can nick down to the supermarket, buy it and have it in our hands ready to use as soon as we get home and although the price of petrol is obscenely high, we doubt that we'd use anymore than 50 cents worth of petrol to do it.

Thirdly, deliveries of the products to your shipping address is made anywhere between 7am and 6pm. That's ok if your at home all day, and seriously who has ever had a delivery person knock on their door at 7am in the morning?? Anyway, so if your like the many millions of people that work, you will likely to be not home when your products arrive. Which will then result in the delivery driver leaving a card and you will then have to contact them, in the time frames they have outlined, to organise re-delivery. Unless of course you have organised for your products to be delivered to an alternate address. If it's at work and your boss is ok with you doing so then no drama, but if it is at a friend or relatives home, then you still have to take the time to go over there to pick up your products.

Now if you live more than 5kms out from the outer 60km zone in your nearest town, then you will have no choice but to nominate an alternate shipping address. So the people who live in rural areas and/or outside of larger towns and cities, who would appreciate and benefit the most from the home delivery of any products they buy, cannot get their Amway products delivered to their door!

So if you find buying all your fresh foods and perishable items as normal, buying your non-perishables through Amway (where a lot of it comes in bulk), where you can wait for a week for them to be delivered to your home, at a time when you will be home, or if your "out of town" not delivered to your home at all but some other alternate address, and paying the shipping fees on top of that then hey, you might say that it's convenient and time saving to shop through Amway.

We say, bugger that for a joke.