Dear Fellow Networkers,
Through BizBasket we are trying to create a platform where you can achieve thorough knowledge of Network Marketing and apply it on your respective Teams so that we can build a healthy business which can give a good name for our industry as a whole and can help people achieve their dream of Financial Freedom.
As you all must know that we are into an industry which is driven by knowledge. Through this article we just thought of providing you all with some knowledge of History of our industry. In this article we will present you the history of Network Marketing/Direct Selling in brief from international as well as Indian perspective.
Network Marketing is 70 years young. In the early 1940's because of the efforts and innovation of a company by the name of California Vitamins Network Marketing was born! A few years later, the company changed its name to NutraLite Food Supplement Corporations.
Like all-powerful concepts, Network Marketing has also met strong resistance due to lack of understanding. There is no mystery to Network Marketing. It's just another form of sales and distribution.
In 1959, former NutraLite distributors Rich DeVoss and Jay Van Andel started the Amway company as the American Way (Am - way) of marketing products. Today the two brothers are among the richest people of the world.
In the mid 1970's, with no clear understanding of what constituted a legitimate use of network marketing, the Federal Trade Commission and state agencies across the United States Of America (USA) turned their eyes to almost all network marketing companies. In 1975, the FTC filed suit against Amway, alleging that the company was an illegal pyramid and that its refusal to sell its products in retail stores constituted a restraint of trade.
Amway spent four years and millions of dollars in legal fees to clear its name. In 1979 the FTC (Federal Trade Commission, USA) ruled that Amway was not a pyramid, that its revenue was generated from the sale of its products, and the FTC acknowledged network marketing as a legal and efficient distribution system. Then the Network Marketing exploded in the next decade.
Today there are thousands of Network Marketing companies operating throughout the world including United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, Asia and the Pacific Basin and the list goes on.
If we look at the history of direct selling in India, it started in year 1998 when Amway launched its business here with the help of its Networkers in USA. After the concept arrived in our country other Companies also jumped into it.
As this industry is bound to face challenges in any country wherever it goes, in year 2006 a case was filed in Honorable High Court of Andhra Pradesh and there was a judgment against the Company under the Mischief of Prize Chit Fund And Money Circulation Act, 1978. Further hearing of the case is still pending in the court of law and the Company has taken a stay on the basis of which it is continuing its business in India.
As it happened in almost every country wherever this concept went, in India too we expect a clear cut legislation for this business to be enacted by the Parliament of our Country. This will help this Multi Billion Dollar industry to grow rapidly in Inida too as it happend across the world.
Asians,
