selling founded 1971 headquarters castle hill new south wales australia key people marek florczuk managing director michial coldwell general manager parent amway website http www.amway.com.au amway australia is the affiliate of amway that serves australia and new zealand . the company began in 1971 . contents 1 history 2 local operations 3 controversy 4 references 5 external links history edit amway australia opened in april 1971 and was amway s first market outside of north america . 1 2 the company launched quickly registering more than 400 distributors in its first month of operation however sales soon stagnated . investigations revealed problems with quality control at local manufacturers and the decision was made to manufacture and ship products from amway headquarters in the us . 2 by 1993 wholesale sales had reached a 148 million . 3 in that year amway australia became part of the publicly listed company amway asia pacific and by 1998 sales had reached a 198 million 3 4 with more than 100 000 distributors marketing over 2 500 products . 1 in 2000 amway asia pacific returned to private ownership by new aap limited a bermuda corporation . 5 6 in march 1998 amway australia launched its first internet based ordering system elvis electronic link via internet services and processed 15.9 million in sales in july 1998 . 7 in april 2000 elvis was replaced by a2k and amway australia became one of the first amway affiliates to introduce a new business model dubbed imc where the i stands for independent business owner ibo the m stands for a new member classification and c stands for client . along with amway products the new portal provided access to various partner company products including ibm petals rm williams blue star office supplies and afs financial services . 7 8 in 2000 it was reported that amway was the largest direct selling company in the australian region with annual turnover of more than 170 million and a network of 100 000 home based distributors . 7 thirty percent of products sold by amway australia come from australian suppliers with the rest from amway factories in the us europe and asia . 1 by 2010 40 % of people joining amway australia were under the age of 30 9 and the company had embraced social media such as facebook and twitter as part of their sales and communications processes 9 as well as increasing brand marketing efforts through the signing of endorsement deals with swimmer libby trickett and australian cricketer adam gilchrist as ambassadors . 10 11 12 local operations edit amway australia has four business centres opened in loganholme queensland ; bella vista new south wales ; coburg victoria and kewdale western australia . 13 controversy edit the direct selling company has been dogged by allegations of being an illegal pyramid scheme for decades . the president of amway has stated to australian media that this is old news . 14 in 1994 nsw state parliamentarian mr scully questioned the consumer affairs minister whether amway australia s distribution practices used dishonest unethical and inappropriate behaviour . the minister for consumer affairs replied that complaints against amway or amway distributors are very few and indicate little cause for concern . following a complaint from amway the department had prosecuted one amway distributor for misleading conduct involving the potential recruitment of amway distributors into another work at home scheme . 15 in 2003 the australian tax office challenged deductions made by amway australia over an 8 year period for seminar expenses in resort locations offered as incentives to successful distributors . amway had a partial win with the federal court ruling amway was largely entitled to the deductions however it was ruled that substantial food and drink bills associated with the seminars were not deductible . 16 in 2004 this ruling was overturned and the deductions were allowed in full because it was a serious business occasion . 17 references edit a b c xardel dominique 1993 . the direct selling revolution . understanding the growth of the amway corporation . blackwell publishing . pp. 1 4 . isbn 978 0 631 19229 9 . a b cross wilbur 1999 . amway the true story of the company that transformed the lives of millions . berkley books . pp. 137 140 . isbn 0 425 17040 3 . a b succession planning bill duncan . ema . archived from the original on 9 october 2007 . ref amway asia pacific reports fourth quarter and fiscal 1999 pdf . amway asia pacific ltd. archived from the original pdf on 6 march 2000 . 1 sec info new aap a b c sue bushell 15 november 2000 . we did it amway . cio australia . idg . amway recruits elvis . new strait times . 21 may 1998 . a b simon canning 3 may 2010 . social networking sites lure direct sellers . the australian . adam gilchrist and libby trickett amway ambassadors trickett dives into new role . kiwana courier . community newspaper group . 20 april 2010 . amway australia storming the field . sportspro . 25 october 2009 . 2 amway in bid to clean up its image . the australian financial review . 20 january 2009 . amway australia distribution practices archived 30 august 2011 at the wayback machine . anne lampe 21 december 2003 . amway junkets paid by taxman . sydney morning herald . landmark decision awards luxury tax break . the australian financial review . 13 october 2004 . external links edit amway australia retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title amway australia & oldid 743928124 categories amwaycompanies based in sydneyhidden categories articles with wayback machine linksuse dmy dates from june 2011use australian english from may 2011all wikipedia articles written in australian english navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 12 october 2016 at 02 16 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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