Let’s say I wanted to try some of this soap they sell (with the knowledge that many, many other things are sold; this is but an example), apparently purported to be superior, and I wanted to buy some. Would I have to actually join Amway in order to gain access to the products?
No, they sell to anyone. All you need to do is find someone selling it, and resist the extra sales pitch to join the cult yourself.
No recent experience, but many years ago my dad (divorcee) was dating a woman into Amway. No, you don’t actually have to “join” Amway, you just have to find a local dealer. …but I imagine that if you show any interest at all, your dealer will be thrilled to let you know about the advantages of starting your own dealership - with him as your sponsor.
An old cow-worker of mine got me to “invest” in www.quixstar.com (online Amway) and upon signing up and giving them somewhere around $80.00 my samples showed up (they were worth about $90.00). I may still be a dealer. Amway products are generally very good but trying to get someone to spend $35.00 on window cleaner is a tough sell even if it’s 20 years worth (in concentrate).
Unclviny
Can’t you just go to Grand Rapids, MI, i.e., the town that Amway keeps alive, and get some?
You don’t have to be a member. I’ve occasionally bought some Amway products from a friend who’s one of their representatives.
In theory you can just buy the products, however, my experience (and the accounts of others with whom I have spoken) leads me to conclude that it is rather difficult to maintain a simple supplier>customer relationship with an Amway distributor; most of this is because the drive behind the organisation is recruitment and the personal goal impressed upon the individual distributors is that if you recruit enough people, you can get paid commission for doing very little work - so everybody wants to be at the top of a growing pyramidal structure of distributors.
Typically (or at least rather commonly), the relationship between a customer(who wishes to remain as such) and supplier becomes so strained by repeated pleading to join the organisation, that it becomes unworkable and/or embarrassing, also there is a tendency for the suppliers to lose interest in the customer when the promise of compound subordinate commission fades.
Mangetout has it 100% correct- and not just for Amway, for all those MLM sales companies.
AND- no longer do Amway products have any special edge. The market has evolved faster than their products have. Not that I am saying they are crap or anything mind you- but it’s not worth the bother. 
What is it about AMWAY that turns reasonable people into mindless robots? You are right…it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to just buy the stuff and be done with it…they keep pestering you to join up!
I don’t know how big the AMWAY pyramid is now…but its hard to see how this thing can keepexpanding any more.
I’d like to see what happens when EVERYBODY is an AMWAY distributor!
It’s because they aren’t selling products, they’re selling a dream (I think they even say as much in their literature etc). It is exactly like a vigorously proselytising religious religious organisation, it just happens to have something other than the concept of a deity at the centre. This is why it is simultaneously successful and despised; it pushes the same buttons.
BTW, I think they manage to wriggle out of the standard definition of ‘pyramid selling’, because there is a fixed number of layers through which commission can be made.
And yes, a religious religious organisation is different to a religious organisation. It must be so, otherwise my proofreading skills would be at fault, whcih simply isn’t the case.
I used to buy just the washing powder SA8 off someone at work for years without ever joining or it even being mentioned. One night someone my wife worked with and her husband came around to discuss a “business opportunity”. When they arrived my wife said, “Phil this better not be Amway.” He fobbed her off with some blurb. Several times my wife warned Phil that if the word Amway passed his lips she would be VERY pissed off. When he actually admitted it my wife picked up their half drunk coffee said “Goodnight”, left the room and left me to see them out. I stopped buying the SA8 after that. It was pretty funny seeing these 2 talking engines so emphatically derailed.
No you wouldn’t, that’s pretty much what happened in Albania back in 1996 . One big pyramid scheme ran out of schmucks and only the “upstreams” had any money at that point.
I don’t think penis ensued, but panic certainly did.
Y’know, this strikes me as unconscionably rude. It’s one thing to reject such an offer at the office, but to invite people into your home, let them make the drive over, and ONLY THEN bring up the Amway issue puts them in a no-win situation.
Not really, because the creeps (or nice people; whatever the case) just won’t tell you what it is. They’re very good at not divulging anything until you’re face to face with them.
Unless you’ve got a cool $100,000 in liquid assets or are otherwise someone who would be expected to be an investor or full time entrepeneur, beware of anyone who wants to talk to you about a “business opportunity” from out of the blue.
There are/were a number of Amway groups in the South & Midwest that did make religion a central point of their selling- so much so that many referred to it as “the cult of Amway”.
In the early 80’s when the economy was in the toilet, my inlaws survived by selling Amway. It saved their house and everything. With the extra money they bought a caddy.
One cannot speak ill of this company at their house and never mention Pyramid Scheme or scam to them.
It doesn’t stop me though. 
How Amway Helped Me Win An Argument. [size=1] Story time, kiddies!
In our early years of dating, Mr. Ujest and I were having a agree to disagree argument over God Knows What and it was in a restaurant with his best buddies. When I realized that I was not wrong but not right and he was too stubborn to admit the same thing and would not admit to being anything but being COMPLETELY RIGHT, I totally changed tactics and said in a calm voice, " You know, Amway is a pyramid scheme."
My future husband just went apolopexic and said, " It.is.not.!!!..blah Indignation blah Rant blah Whatever."
And his friends, I still remember this, spit their foods or drinks out at my tactic and nearly choked in their laughter.
His best friend said that was the best way to derail an argument with my husband, Mr. Reasonable and his former college room mate, that he ever saw.
I use this tactic to this day. If I cannot win, I badger the witness.
Just thought I would share.
A (former) friend of mine and his wife are Amway clones. After telling them time and time again that I wasn’t interested in hearing about their “home business” they tried a different tactic. His wife called and told me that she knew that we weren’t interested in their business but they were new at it and needed to practice their pitch and would we mind critiquing them. I was totally disgusted and cut off contact.
Haj
Can you make a decnt income actually selling this stuff? Suppose you ditched your dreams of signing up 400 people under you…so that you can do “gold” or “platinum”, or whatever. Suppose you decide to seel the stuff only-can you earn a decent income from it? Or are you stuck with a pile of stuff that only your in-laws will purchase?
From what I see, AMWAY products are OK, but cost a lot more than other brands-so why would people buy them? Do they just buy stuff from major vendors like P&G, and slap their own label on them?
I do appreciate all of the input. Offhand, unless I find something really cheap ($35 for window cleaner? Gah!) or clever from a resistable and local dealer, I think I may just sit this one out.
A friend in my late stepfather’s organization suggested (unknowingly to my stepfather) that he be given what seemed to be the usual Amway recruitment evaluation in our home. He beared it in the interest of diplomacy, I figure, but he wasn’t too happy about it. 
ralph124c asked a question that is similar to one I just had, as well.