Quixtar Announces First Five "Partner Stores"
-Affiliate Link- Search Now:	Well, with much fanfare, Quixtar has announced its first five partner stores. They are: IBM Apple Computer Paul Frederick Menstyle Ocean Essentials Landscape, USA According to Amway/Quixtar VP Ken McDonald, "Our partner stores and the relationship we have with them is part of what makes www.quixtar.com so unique. These e-commerce sites will round out the shopping and business experience for Quixtar Clients, Members and affiliated Independent Business Owners." Now, IBOs have been touting Quixtar as "the biggest internet mall in the history of the world," with "hundreds of thousands of partners." This doesn't look even close.

"Join the Paul Fredrick Affiliates Program! Earn commissions of 9% helping sell quality menswear!. . .All you have to do is create a link to Paulfredrick.com and we do the rest!

Paul Fredrick processes the order.

Paul Fredrick ships the products.

Paul Fredrick handles all the customer service.

You or Your company earns the commissions. . .

"Getting started is simple and free. "

Gee, does that mean that if I become a Paul Frederick affiliate, I can bill my website as "the biggest internet mall" with "hundreds of thousands of products"?

Then I went looking for Ocean Essentials. I found their site at www.oceanessentials.com. Guess what? They are "under construction" until 9/1/99. Hmmm.

How about Landscape, USA? Ever heard of them? I hadn't. So I located their site at www.landscapeusa.com. Guess what? They have an affiliate program, too!

"Welcome to the next generation of lawn & garden retailing. Where you provide referral traffic, and we do all the rest. Our Affiliate program allows us to work together with selected web sites in a mutually beneficial business relationship.

"Now you can easily add commerce to your site and sell high quality landscape, irrigation, outdoor lighting, and lawn & garden items, without having to stock inventory or invest in a costly online catalog. '

And the affiliate program is free for web site owners!

You know what? I am not impressed.

Now, here's a question. With all those IBOs running around claiming that Microsoft is "partners" with Quixtar, and has put up all kinds of money to get Quixtar up and running, how come Microsoft is not one of the shopping partners?

Contrast this with a typical set of IBO claims. This was forwarded to me on August 16, three days after the big "Five Partners" announcement by someone who'd been prospected. My comments will be in bold face type.

Greetings! I am an interventional cardiologist in St. Petersburg, Florida with training at University of Penn, Yale, and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Been in practice since '93.

I have NEVER been tempted by ANY MLM business -- until Quixtar. I have had a long love affair with computers and the internet and have been wondering for years how to leverage the wildfire growth of the internet into a profitable business. I have several friends, not nearly as bright as I am, who are now worth over $100 million due to internet related and computer related businesses. Cardiology has been reasonably good to me but I'm certainly not in their league and was not even considering early retirement. In fact, six years in practice and I still have some loans to pay off, mostly due to a relatively expensive lifestyle (for which I blame my wife! But that's another story...). So back to the story of Quixtar...

The launch of Quixtar is only three weeks away (Sept 1). I will try here in e-mail to summarize what Quixtar is all about. I am highly involved and have already gotten many others involved. My expectation is that within a few years, Quixtar will generate enough life-long annual income for me to facilitate a significant change in lifestyle -- read into that what you will...

Quixtar is an internet based business that is launching Sept 1, '99. The people who started Amway are primarily responsible (although Quixtar is completely separate from Amway) but they have two partners that you may have heard of if you live on the planet earth -- IBM and Microsoft. [If IBM and MS are "partners," then why did an Amway representative release this recent statement?]

Microsoft alone has invested over $125 million in the project. The business plan for this multi-level marketing business is the ONLY one approved by the US government. That's one reason why no one else can do this -- it will take several years for another business plan of this type to get approved. Also, it's kind of difficult to find business partners more powerful and successful than IBM and MSFT...

The Quixtar site will offer thousands (actually, over 100,000) of brand name products from brand name retailers, e.g. The Gap, Nordstrom's, Sony, Panasonic, Reebok, Adidas, Toshiba, Lee, Ralph Lauren, Whirlpool, Kellogg's, etc. etc, etc. [That's why McDonald made an announcement on June 18, 1999, stating: "Now, before I give you the categories of the partner stores, I do need to stop a false rumor that's been circulating about a supposed partner. It is not true that we are negotiating with a store by the name of Nordstrom. In fact, because IBOs are
spreading this untrue rumor, there may never be a business relationship between Quixtar and Nordstroms. So if you hear this particular rumor, or similar reports that mention the names of other supposed partner stores, please squash the rumors on the spot.]
A true virtual mall more comprehensive than anything else currently in existence. [Right. With five partner stores.. .] There will also be links to other e-commerce retail sites, e.g. Amazon.com, Land's End. You'll be able to buy anything from food to electronics, to computers, to long-distance phone service, to vitamins, to clothes, shoes, blow dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers -- essentially ANYTHING you can buy in a retail store now. (You'll even by able to buy cars!) Hard to believe, but the Quixtar web site already contains over 15,000 web pages and will continue to grow right up until launch date on 9-1-99. (Actually, the site will continue to grow and evolve after launch date, too -- that's one of the strengths of an internet based mall. Modifications, price changes, new products, etc can be accomplished instantaneously.) In fact, there's a "waiting list" of 4500 companies that want to be on Quixtar but have not been accepted and placed on the site yet. They already have links to 70 other web-based businesses such as Amazon.Com. [Really? How do you know? Got any facts, Doc?]

The only difference between buying "direct" from Amazon.Com and buying from Amazon via Quixtar is that when you buy from Amazon via Quixtar, you'll get a DISCOUNT and you'll get profit sharing!!! [Yes, it's called the Amazon affiliates program. I've been a member for over a year. Anyone can join.]

Here's how it works: As of Sept 1, anyone who owns a computer and has internet access will be able to go to www.quixtar.com and purchase any item. However, they will pay the "normal" price. If that same person enters an IBO# (independent business owner number), then two important things happen: (1) they get a DISCOUNT of 15-45% depending on the item, and (2) the owner of the IBO# (e.g. YOU and ME!) gets "profit sharing".

Why would anyone want to purchase and not put in an IBO#? Frankly, I can't imagine. Does anybody refuse the sale price in a store and demand to pay full price? Doesn't everyone want to save money? Of course! Every time they save money, you and I make money. Why do I say "you and I"? Because it could be. For example, I am an IBO. If I sponsor you to become an IBO, then when you buy something, both you and I get "profit sharing". If you give your IBO# to someone else, and they buy something, then we both make money again. For example, if you sign up 10 people to be in your "network", then every time those 10 people buy anything, we both make money. And if those 10 people each sign up ten more people ... well, you get the idea. The "pyramid" grows geometrically beneath each and every IBO. Therefore, it does not matter how many people are "above" you in the pyramid -- only how many people are below you in YOUR pyramid. The more people in your network, the more "profit sharing" proceeds you receive. The commission schedule is set up so that as much as 50% of the purchase price of an item can potentially be paid out in commissions!!! And the more dollar volume you generate, the higher your percentage of profit sharing goes. That's important -- it means that as your dollar volume grows arithmetically (or linearly), your profit sharing increases exponentially.

So why would retailers agree to do this? Because that's how badly retailers in 1999 want to get their stuff in front of the millions of internet shoppers. Why? Because they know that the business model of advertising on network TV (back when there were only three networks) is DEAD! Too many cable channels, pay per view, video rentals, DVD, computer games, etc etc etc. Think about this: Amazon.Com currently spends $29 in advertising for EACH person they get to their site. (That's why they lost $100 million last year on $600 million of sales...) Don't you think they'd rather give a discount and do some profit sharing to get millions of additional customers via the Quixtar site? You bet they would ... and so would pretty much everybody else! Plus, this approach guarantees profitability. They're not wasting advertising dollars on people who never buy -- they only pay for "advertising" (read "profit sharing") when someone actually buys something from them!

Now, here's some more important stuff: There are no catalogs, no order sheets, no personal contact with those buying -- it's ALL done through the internet. Which means that busy people like you and me can do this!

So now you're wondering, "Is there really enough business out there to support this"? Is e-commerce really growing that fast? Getting that big? Well, here are some facts to consider. E-commerce is growing at a rate of 700% per year. The number of US households with internet access increased from 10% last year to 25% this year... and is estimated to hit 90% in the year 2001. Number of US internet users is expected to grow from 30 million to 300 million in next two years! The US gov't (a fairly reliable source!) estimates that purchases on-line will grow from about $4.5 billion now to about $2.3 TRILLION (yes, I said trillion) by the year 2003. Know of any other type of investment opportunity with that kind of growth??? I sure don't. [Of course, he's completely ignoring the fact that Amway distributors -- er, IBOs -- simply don't sell to consumers. . .]

Many people (Alan Greenspan, Bill Gates among others) have been quoted as saying that the growth of the internet and e-commerce is the biggest revolution in the business world in a long, long time, perhaps ever. Is RIGHT NOW possibly a true "once in a lifetime" opportunity? A chance to get in at the top of what will undoubtedly be an incredibly successful business? (A recent piece on MSNBC predicted Quixtar will generate more sales revenue in its first year than Amazon.Com does now -- prediction is for sales of $2 billion the FIRST year!!!) One way to think of this opportunity is to compare it to an IPO for a company that you know in advance will be incredibly successful -- if you could, would you go back and buy shares on the original IPO of Microsoft? Or IBM? Or Dell? Gateway? Yahoo? Amazon? Difference is that this investment generates a lifetime of steadily growing income -- potentially to HUGE numbers.

Will people five years from now look at the people that started with Quixtar in 1999 and wish they'd started back in Sept '99, when it was all first starting? You bet! I've met a lot of people who started in Amway five or ten years ago and I'm pretty impressed with their lifestyle, (wealthy, retired, and young). I am entirely convinced that the growth rate for Quixtar businesses is going to dwarf anything ever seen with Amway (which was pretty damn successful for a lot of people). [I wonder what "a lot of people" means? There've been fewer than 800 Diamonds in North America in 40 years. Doesn't sound like a real great success rate to me. . .]

So here's the bottom line -- If you cannot see where the US economy is going (i.e. onto the internet!), then Quixtar is not right for you. But if you understand why practically the only companies shown on the stock ticker tape on the business channels are internet stocks (Yahoo, AOL, Amazon, GoTo.Com, Go2Net, TGLO, etc, etc, etc), and you want to tap into the tremendous income opportunity afforded by this rapid growth period for internet commerce, then you'll want to get involved in Quixtar ... and SOON. [Great! Here's the hook! If you don't get into Quixtar, you're proving that you are dumb because you can't see where the US economy is going. . .]

I would be happy to send you a Quixtar CD . . . [from here it just deteriorates into typical rah-rah hype and jive.'

Hope they have other partner stores that are a little more interesting than this!

More Quixtar Information

This page updated Aug-18 -99