After two decades of bringing quality consumer products to Filipinos, Amway Philippines is building a new center and introducing new products to reach out to new demographics—the millennials.
In its 20th year in the country, the company unveiled fresh initiatives to keep up with changing consumer profile.
“What do you do if you’re a company 20 years in the market already. Sometimes, you have to keep innovating. That’s what Amway is known for,” says Amway Philippines country manager Ma. Elenita Olmedo.
“For one, we are coming up with products specific for the Filipino market. One of the biggest things we’ll be doing in the near future is we will be having our new physical infrastructure and we call it the Brand Experience Center. We’re moving our headquarters and location for Amway distribution center. We’re opening up in a way that you can shop and be experiencing Amway in a whole new way,” Olmedo says.
The new Amway center will serve as a second home for Amway business owners –a place that gives more room for expanding distribution and consumer base.
Amway Philippines is also expanding its product line to accommodate timely products specific to Filipino consumers, especially the youth. The company has 200 active products in the Philippines. Global lineup covers more than 450 products.
“We will have a brand specific to the Philippines that will reach younger demographics. This Amway brand will not be available anywhere else. Since beauty and skin care still dominates direct selling, this is where we want to be,” Olmedo says.
A report by market research firm Euromonitor shows that direct selling business in the Philippines is worth P62.7 billion annually. Of this, skin care and the make-up category is about P19 billion.
“And that is mostly mass. Amway as a prestige brand targets the huge opportunities presented by the local cosmetics sector. We see the potential and that’s what we want to capture. That’s where we are going and while we can’t say we’ll be majority, we want a big [market share],” says Olmedo.
The prestige category is only about 20 percent of total skin care and cosmetics. Product launch is planned at the end of the first semester.
Amway’s main products will remain Nutralite health supplements, its lifeblood accounting for 50 percent of total sales. Nutralite health supplements are produced using 100-percent plant derivatives from lycopene to flavanols.
Amway has its own certified organic farms where most of the plants and herbs needed to sustain the health supplement segment are grown.
In the Philippines, Amway teamed up with local coffee company Figaro to co-develop an energy-packed instant coffee product called Achievers Coffee in 2011.
Because of the distinct characteristic of the Filipino consumer, the Philippines has been chosen as pilot testing site for Amway products.
The country’s young demographics, social savviness of the Filipino youth and penchant for all things western contributed to it being a pilot test site for Amway.
“Which means that if you’re going to pilot test anything that has some global influence, deserves some global impact in the future, the Philippine has every good ground for doing that. We’ve been testing a lot of digital and social initiatives in the Philippines. So, it’s for this reason that we’ve been identified to pilot test some products,” Olmedo says.
She says the Philippines is in a unique position to provide a fertile testing ground for new ideas for Amway.
“Our economy is currently among the fastest-growing in Southeast Asia, and has been on this stable trend in recent years. Growth is being driven by in-market consumption. With declining poverty incidence and rising income, the Philippines is fast becoming an upper middle-income country, providing more opportunities for retailing, especially for consumer goods in the fast-growing categories of health and wellness, beauty and home care,” she says.
“The Philippines is in a sweet spot as the 100 million skews young, with about 70 percent of the population below the age of 35, and average age, as of last survey, is now at 23 year old. The Philippines is also among the largest English speaking population in Asean, very western in orientation, and therefore, any new initiative piloted in the market will have great applicability globally,” she says.
“What’s really driving the business is the sponsoring growth or the increasing number of distributors joining the organization. This is one of the indicators of a company’s health –when it is being driven by people joining the business,” says Olmedo.
Amway Philippines has more than 60,000 distributors nationwide.
