What The Heck Is A Prosumer?

What the heck is a prosumer? Amway IBOs use the term as if they actually know what they are talking about but “prosumer” is a term used in a book by an author named Bill Quain. I didn’t read the book but I did read summaries and basically, the book is about how consumers spend money and the difference being that prosumers make money while spending it. The book was written and promoted to Amway IBO at a time when a common philosophy among IBOs was to “buy from yourself and get others to do the same”.

On the surface, it may sound like a good idea to an IBO because the fact is that most people do not like selling. So why not buy from myself and get others to follow? What IBOs seem unable to grasp is that buying from yourself makes you a consumer. Nobody is going to buy themselves into prosperity and you are fooling yourself if you think you’ll be the first one. Else. I can consider myself a “prosumer” by using a cash back credit card. But stop and think for a minute. Even getting cash back or being “paid” to shop, I still have less money in my pocket even if I get cash back. Yes, spending more gets me a bigger rebate (or check from Amway) but I will repeat, nobody spends their way to prosperity.

In Amway, you move 100 PV, which costs about $300 a month and you earn a 3% bonus, which is about $10. That wouldn’t be so bad if you truly bought products that you already use and if the products are priced about the same as retailers like WalMart or Costco. But Amway products are not priced to compete. Amway pays bonuses to IBOs in excess of 30% for each dollar they sell. Those bonuses are built into the price of the product, thus Amway cannot compete overall. Now that isn’t to say you cannot get any decent products at a decent price from Amway, but they are too few and far between to make it worth your while overall.

Thus the only way you can really make money in Amway is to recruit. While there is no direct payment for recruiting downline, it must be done to profit because you have little to no leverage on your product volume unless you start to accumulate a big downline. But even if you profit, your downline suffer the fate you once had. Little to no leverage on volume. Why would I take the time and effort and expense to buy $300 worth of good from Amway (plus shipping fees) when I can get the same amount of products at WalMart for $150? Even factoring in the bonus from Amway, I still win shopping elsewhere.

This is where the IBOs like to use the argument that Amway products are of high quality or concentrated. Quality is subjective and to be honest, when it comes to household products and other consumables that IBOs peddle, quality is not a significant factor as much as the bottom line price. WalMart sales of nearly half a trillion annually confirms that price is indeed important, more important than the argument IBOs use for being loyal to Amway products. And in reality, WalMart products are just as good in my opinion.

The prosumer argument is just another silly concept written to try and reinforce the notion that being an Amway IBO is a good idea. Bottom line is you will never ever, “buy your way to prosperity”. Do the math, nobody ever got rich by spending money. If you don’t believe my argument, name 2 people who got rich buy purchasing their own products.