The Kleeneze 2012 Christmas Showcase on Saturday September 1st at the NIA in Birmingham provided some of the most significant news for the business for a number of years. The main announcements from the day were:
- Kleeneze’s turnover target is $1 billion by 2023, which will be the year of Kleeneze’s centenary
- Kleeneze will kick-start their international expansion plans late in 2013 with a planned launch into Spain. Kleeneze has been piloting their retail method in Spain over recent months with encouraging results
- Distributors can now take orders online from their online Kleeneze shops and Kleeneze will deliver the goods direct to customers. The customer will pay £3.95 postage charge per order and a distributor’s retail commission will be reduced from 21% to approximately 15%. This means distributors are no longer restricted to retailing within their own area
- A new opportunity video will be launched in September that will be broken down into a series of shorter videos
Some other interesting facts of the day included:
- The direct sales industry which Kleeneze is a founding member, has a current annual turnover of $153 billion
- Kleeneze is currently the 85th biggest direct sales company in the world in terms of turnover – achieved from a predominately UK market
- In the UK market, the direct sales industry has a turnover of £1.5 billion, with 400,000 people involved (mainly on a part-time basis). The biggest growth in recent years has come from the over 50’s
The two most significant announcements of the day for current and prospective distributors were the news of further international expansion in 2013 and the launch of Kleeneze’s delivery service for orders taken on distributor’s online shops.
International Expansion
The company’s ambitious growth plans will require significant expansion into new markets over the next decade and with a large population of English people living in Spain, the country is an obvious choice as the launch pad into other European countries. More news will be made available on this blog as soon as there are further developments.
Online Shops
Research recently undertaken by Kleeneze has shown that there are two relatively distinct groups of customers in terms of shopping preferences. There are those that prefer browsing and ordering from a catalogue and receiving free delivery and personal service from a distributor; and those who are happy to shop online and pay a carriage charge. It is unclear at the moment whether Kleeneze will accept orders online direct from the public (thus bypassing distributors) or whether all orders must be made through a distributor’s online shop.
The positive news is that distributors can take online orders without having to worry about getting the products to customers who live a long distance from where they live. A potentially negative outcome is that some distributors may opt to retail less, or opt of catalogue retailing completely. This would be negative for the company’s sales figures as the catalogue retailing methodology, free delivery and personal service that distributors provide are what separates their business model from a mass of other online retailers.
Overall, it was a very positive day which left you feeling that you may have witnessed the first day of a whole new period of growth for Kleeneze.
The guest speaker for the day was Paul Southworth, who is the Director General of the Direct Selling Association in the UK. He shared some interesting statistics about the direct selling industry’s position and role within the British economy.
If you are interested in becoming a Kleeneze distributor or team leader, please visit the Join Kleeneze page for more information.
