Is USANA a top-rated supplement?

Let's ask google.



Searching for "top rated supplement" on google doesn't even show USANA until the 5th page. The third party that USANA likes to refer to so much is actually a biased editorial.

USANA admits only 3% ever receive a check

Sorry, I haven't had time to update this blog for the past year. Here is a video showing where to find the quote on USANA's website:



"Those earning as little as one check a month equal approximately 3% of all Associates." --Straight from USANA itself

Think you can make it into those 3%? That's just to GET a check in the first place. Once you get there, you have to make AT LEAST $200 per month on those checks in order to pay your autoship. Otherwise the autoship money won't even pay for itself! Not to mention time spent on USANA and additional costs of training and seminars etc. The rest of the statistics on that page make it hard to decipher how many people are capable of paying off their autoship. But it's definitely less than 31% and possibly as low as 2%. And that's OF THE ORIGINAL 3%, not total.

The USANA Cellular Compensation Plan

Here's an interesting article outlining some of the problems with USANA's comp plan.

The USANA Cellular Compensation Plan

To sum it up:

Distributors keep paying into the system in the hope that they'll eventually make enough money to cover their expenses, and those commission payments are always just around the corner. USANA uses the concept of deferred commissions as a carrot to keep their distributors involved.

...

There are several features of a network marketing company that should indicate that there are problems:

• The company is more concerned with their structure than with the product they're selling.
  
• The company's structure does not appear to provide any added value to the customer.
  
• The company's structure has elaborate and complicated rules for no readily apparent purpose.
  
• The company has numerous levels for supposedly independent distributors.
  
• The company spends a lot of time insisting that it's not a pyramid scam.
  
  

USANA has all of these features, and then some. But the worst one is taking advantage of people's enthusiasm, hard work, and ambition, by promising a dream they have no intention of providing.

Why are USANA products expensive?

There are 4 possible answers to this question:
1. USANA has superior products
2. Their direct selling form of marketing takes advantage of relationships founded on trust to convince customers to pay a higher price
3. Each sale results in several levels being paid, so the cost of selling is higher
4. Many people buy the products with the intention to join the business, and this adds value to the product

The only reason that says anything good about USANA is 1. 2 makes USANA an example of deceptive marketing. 3 is good for the distributors who have a big downline, but does nothing for consumers. And 4 makes USANA clear cut pyramid scheme, according to the FTC. Product sales become a de facto fee for joining the business. The "fee" earns the recruiter a commission just for recruiting. That is known as pyramiding.

So are USANA products really superior? How much are their products actually worth? If you search USANA on ebay, you can find products for a fraction of the price. (As mentioned in my Pyramid Scheme article) So you can certainly find USANA products for a cheaper price. It makes sense that people buy the products because they have to when they're in the business(also explained in the pyramid article), and those distributors try to make back at least some of the money spent by selling on ebay. This cannot be considered retail sales, because the price the distributor bought the products is higher than what they are selling them for. The large volume of people doing this has driven the price down to about 2/3 of what it had been. This would indicate reason #4.

So what are USANA's claims to superiority? Inclusion in the PDR doesn't hold water. The apple test doesn't tell us much about Usana's effect on the human body. Preservatives make food last longer, should we all be guzzling those? The claims on their labels have been described as pseudo-science. I even tried taking Usana products for a while and got symptoms of vitamin overdose and exploding head syndrome, something I had never experienced before. From personal experience, I can tell you that most of Usana's contents go straight through you. If you've ever taken them, you know what I'm talking about.

So are we paying extra for all that stuff that's left over? Doesn't seem like a good deal really. I'd rather buy a cheaper supplement that actually had the right amounts of stuff in it.

USANA vandalizes their own wikipedia article

This one has been pointed out by someone at the Anti-USANA facebook group. As can be seen with wikiscanner, the USANA IP address has been used to remove content from wikipedia describing acusations (not even actually accusing) USANA of being a pyramid scheme, among other things.

Wikiscanner search for USANA's IP

Wikipedia article history showing USANA removing "pyramid scheme allegations"

In this case, USANA was actually careless enough to use their own internet connection to edit Wikipedia. Who knows how many edits they may have made through proxies, alternate accounts, etc., not to mention edits made by reps from their home computers. Also note, USANA seems to have outsourced the discussion-suppressing spam on their Yahoo finance board.

Update(12/12/2008): The link to wikiscanner seems to be broken. However, the records of Usana's vandalism still exists in the wikipedia article history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usana&diff=147293679&oldid=147291762

USANA is in the PDR... So what?

USANA often likes to parade it's inclusion in the Physician's Desk Reference as a claim to superiority over other products, a justification of it's inexcusably high prices. The Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) is a reference book used by physicians and has a section on supplements.

As it turns out, being included in the PDR doesn't really mean anything. The company that makes PDR doesn't do any analysis whatsoever of the information included. Any manufacturer of supplements can simply buy their way in.

Here's a quote from the Thomson Reuters Healthcare TOS. That's the company that makes the PDR.

TRHC does not warrant or guarantee any of the products described, prices supplied, or medical device information contained, and does not perform any independent analysis in connection with any of the product descriptions. TRHC does not assume, and expressly disclaims, any obligation to obtain and include any information other than that provided to it by its third party sources. It should be understood that by making this material available TRHC is not advocating the use of any product described in this site, nor is TRHC responsible for misuse of a product due to typographical error. Additional information on any product may be obtained from the manufacturer.

As you can see, TRHC simply takes whatever information is given by the manufacturer and publishes it. They do not endorse the product or make any claims about it's superiority over other (not included) products. So any USANA rep using a product's inclusion in the PDR to support claims of superiority over other products is clearly a violation of false advertising.

Myron Wentz selling off his stake in USANA

Insider Cow: USNA

Gull holdings is owned by USANA's founder, Myron Wentz. Through Gull, he owned part of USANA, but as you can see in the above link he is selling it off quick. He doesn't seem to have much faith in USANA's future. Recently he tried to buy it off and make it go private. Seems that if he can't run his company out of public view, he'd rather bail out on it entirely.