Quixtar is a multi-level marketing company that was founded in 1999 by Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, although the company is now owned by Alticor, the owner of such businesses as Amway. Quixtar operates using a model similar to that of Amway in that there are multiple Independent Business Owners (or IBOs) who are selling the products as well as offering membership to increase the sales force of the company. Since 2001, Quixtar has replaced its sister company Amway as marketer and distributor of products like Nutrilite dietary supplements, Artistry brand cosmetics and XS Energy Drinks.

Quixtar offers entrepreneurs the ability to have their own web-based business and through the company’s Independent Business Owner Compensation Plan, owners are rewarded for the amount of product sales resulting from personal business-building efforts. The amount of rewards given to IBOs had reached more than $345 million in bonuses and incentives in fiscal 2005 while since the company’s establishment the figures are more than $1.7 billion.

As far as sales figures go, Quixtar’s independent business owners have generated more than $5.3 billion in sales via the company’s website www.quixtar.com as well as more than $396 million for Partner Stores. Through all of this effort, Quixtar has reach top status as the number one online retailer of health and beauty products based on sales alone. A list of the e best-selling e-commerce websites compiled by Internet Retailer magazine has placed Quixtar in the top twenty.

Quixtar is based near Grand Rapids, Michigan, and employs a staff of nearly a thousand people who are there to provide support to numerous independent business owners in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and various trust territories and independent island nations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and Caribbean Sea.