Amway - Bonus Statistics">
The SA-4400 in effect Jan 1997 states that the average monthly income of active distributors in the survey conducted Apr 94 - May 95 was $88 per distributor or $1,056 per year. This includes the performance bonus received plus the income from retail sales. This survey was done for the North American market only and is only performed every five years.
Let's use $2.04 billion in sales (the North American market is 30% of Amway's worldwide $6.8 billion sales in fiscal year 1996) as the starting point. If this 68% figure was true, then $1.3872 billion in bonuses were paid to 1.3 million distributors in North America to get the $88 per month distributor average.
Now, bear in mind, that according to the SA-4400, only 41% of all distributors on record in North America are considered active. That would mean that there would need to be well over 2.5 million distributors just in North America for this to be true. In my opinion, this 68% figure can't possibly be true, since there are 2.5 million distributors in the whole world, according to Amway's press releases.
One way you can come up with this 68% figure is to just add up the bonus percentages. In the first three ways of making money, you've got a 30% markup, 25% performance bonus, and a 4% leadership bonus, which is 59% in just those three. The rest of the bonuses I'm sure would be at least 9% if not more.
One problem I have with this using this method is that you can't count the 30% markup unless it is a retail sale. The markup from distributor cost to retail cannot be counted as a "bonus" for personal consumption, at least not in the U.S.
The second problem with using these numbers, is that all other bonuses are paid on Business Volume, not actual retail dollars. As you'll see on a later page, the Business Volume is substantially less than the actual retail dollars.
