Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications

    Quixtar: Cleaning Up

    By
    Kim S. Nash
    -
    June 21, 2004
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Amway, A multilevel marketer of cleansers and vitamins, hasnt done business in the U.S. since 1999. Thats when Amway founders invented Quixtar. Its business model: A network of so-called independent business owners, or IBOs, sells products, recruits other sellers, and takes a cut on sales the newcomers book. The difference: Its all done at quixtar.com.

      Sales at the five-year-old site have soared to $1 billion, already one-third the total of 45-year-old Amway, which still sells face-to-face overseas. Still, Quixtars Web site suffers from design kinks that any e-commerce company should avoid. Fixing the flaws could produce another $100 million annually, estimates Mark Hurst, president of Creative Good, an Internet consultancy.

      Quixtars clubby business model is both good and bad. Good because members know the Quixtar lingo and procedures, and visit the site mainly to place orders. Unlike most online shoppers, Quixtar faithful have a mission when they go to quixtar.com and “muddle through” the difficult site to complete it, Hurst says.

      Those steeped in the Quixtar way have learned to overlook glaring usability problems. There are no everyday shoppers rattling customer service lines with complaints.

      Chuck Schoeffield started selling Amway in 1973, then moved to Quixtar in 1999. Veterans like Schoeffield may know the difference between the Choices Index and Shopping Directory or that Ditto Delivery means to ship an identical order regularly.

      But most shoppers wouldnt. Thats no good because Quixtar also wants to sell to the general public and confusion thwarts sales, says Claudia Case, a usability consultant at Keynote Systems, a Web measurement company. “Every site has secondary users. You want to make them successful as well,” she says.

      Check out eWEEK.coms Enterprise Applications Center at http://enterpriseapps.eweek.com for the latest news, reviews and analysis about productivity and business solutions.

      At Baselines request, Keynote evaluated the purchasing experience at Quixtars site. Overall, Case found that quixtar.com lacks a consistent look, and is organized to reflect how Quixtar works rather than how a shopper shops.

      And Quixtar has sometimes encountered problems with the sites checkout procedure. Last fall, for example, the site automatically filled in an incorrect “ship-to” address in several orders, unbeknownst to those customers. Quixtar called the 14 customers affected to straighten it out. Technicians then fixed the offending code.

      A “fairly comprehensive redesign” of the site is due this fall, Quixtar spokeswoman Anna Bryce says, based on usability tests recently conducted with some business owners. She declines to cite specifics.

      To trace problems in the meantime, Quixtar runs Web site monitoring software from TeaLeaf Technology in San Francisco. TeaLeafs RealiTea package records the moves of each quixtar.com visitor—every click and keystroke.

      When a problem hits, Quixtar staff can pinpoint the error by playing back particular user sessions from a 2-terabtye database of 10 days worth of user activity.

      Still, the TeaLeaf software is only reactionary. By redesigning the site to mesh with common shopping behavior, Quixtar could avoid glitches and convert more visits to sales. The master of multilevel marketing must think like a buyer, not a seller.

      Additional reporting by Elizabeth Bennett

      Be sure to add our eWEEK.com enterprise applications news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page

      Next Page: Quixtar Base Case.

      Quixtar: Cleaning Up – Page 2

      Quixtar Base Case

      Headquarters: 5101 Spaulding Plaza, Ada, MI 49355

      Phone: (616) 787-6000

      Business: Online sales of private-label home and health products; the sister company of Amway

      Top Web Technologist: Jim Blodgett, manager of the Internet business group

      Financials for 2003: $1 billion in sales, up from $901 million in 2002; privately held.

      Challenge: To appeal not only to its community of registered “independent business owner” customers but also to everyday shoppers who arent part of the Quixtar network.

      Baseline Goals:

      • Refine Web site design and functionality to improve sales from todays rate of roughly $3 million per day.
      • Store 10 days worth of online sales sessions, which is 18,000 sessions or 2 terabytes of data.
      • Roll out Web site troubleshooting software to all 50 customer service agents, up from 30 today.
      Avatar
      Kim S. Nash
      Senior Writer[email protected]Kim has covered the business of technology for 14 years, doing investigative work and writing about legal issues in the industry, including Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust trial. She has won numerous awards and has a B.S. degree in journalism from Boston University.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×