It's October 1, 1999, and Quixtar has had a month now to see whether it can live up to all the hooplah that preceded and surrounded its opening.

On September 1, 1999, www.quixtar.com didn't open for business. The site was plagued with problems, demonstrating Amway/Quixtar's unreadiness for successful e-commerce. Quixtar is Amway's attempt to reinvent itself as an entirely new business, while separating itself from the reputation it has earned over the years.

"Shopping partners" are by no means of the stature that IBOs were claiming prior to launch. Names like Land's End, Eddie Bauer, Amazon, and other prestigious online shopping destinations were claimed by IBOs as being online with Quixtar. They're not. For a list of partner stores, click here. Quixtar was supposed to open one month ago, on 9/1/99. That opening has been happening gradually over the past month. How does Quixtar's performance compare with what was promised by IBOs and by Amway/Quixtar?

1. Even with hype from the IBOs aside, Quixtar was billed as a one-stop shopping destination for IBOs, Members and Clients. Everything, from registration to ordering, was supposed to happen online -- that was the whole purpose of having an e-commerce business.
   
2. Registrations haven't been taking place online. When someone tries to register, they go through all the cumbersome process -- and, by the way, I have NEVER shopped before at a site where you are required to register BEFORE shopping! -- and when finished with the process, you find that you aren't registered at all. You need to make a PHONE CALL to complete your registration process! A PHONE CALL? to register as a customer on an internet shopping site? Here's the error message that is generated:
   
   "Thank you for your interest in creating a Quixtar account. Unfortunately, your request could not be processed at this time. Please call Quixtar Customer Service at 1-800-222-1462 to finish creating your account."
   
3. The site is still not working smoothly. In an article by AP Writer Lisa Singhania on September 21,
   
   "Customers have spent a weekly average of between 47 and 50 minutes on the Quixtar site since its launch, according to Sean Wargo, an analyst at PC Data, Inc., which tracks e-commerce activity."
   
   If their experience is anything like mine, it has taken them between 47 and 50 minutes on the site just to attempt to register!
   
4. Sales are not impressive. In the September 21 article, VP Ken McDonald is quoted as saying that "there were $1 million in sales during the site's first two weeks in operation." Since Amway is now claiming in the neighborhood of one million North American distributors, or IBOs, that means that each one ordered ONE WHOLE DOLLAR's worth of product in the first two weeks. A far cry from the blow-your-socks-off e-mail I was getting from IBOs, such as the one that claimed Quixtar would generate $100 million in sales the first day.
   
5. In an Amvox message on September 18, McDonald announced a toll-free number: "The third number is the Quixtar Customer Service number that you've been using all along and the Tech Hotline number ought to relieve some of the traffic there. That’s 1-800-222-1462. And that number is for folks who have Customer Service problems or would just like to place an order."
   
   Wait a minute. E-commerce. . . online ordering. . .a phone number to PLACE AN ORDER? Does anyone besides me find this hilarious? Doesn't that negate the whole point of e-commerce? Isn't e-commerce supposed to be, umm, electronic?
   
6. In a statement in the same news article, McDonald insists that
   
   "People went to the site because of their relationship with an independent business owner,'' he said. "They're going to keep going back because of their friend's recommendation, and people have read enough about the Internet to know these types of problems aren't uncommon.''
   
   Maybe people who've only READ about the internet think these kinds of problems are common, but people who USE the internet don't expect to find them in 1999.
   
7. Quixtar was voted fourth-worst of the "Top Ten Worst Examples of E-Commerce" by prestigious ZDNET. Fourth-worst out of ten for two weeks now, ZDNet says that Quixtar's homepage "fails to explain the site's purpose." I'd say that pretty well sums it up.