Monavie Income Claims

[Stinky McGurk]

If you do a search for Monavie, you'll find many claims that they do a $1 Billion dollars a year in sales (and even higher).

Now for a company selling strictly one product, a bottle of juice, this figure seems somewhat inflated.

As Monavie is a privately held company, is there any way to check their actual annual sales numbers?

[RyanMcC]

While it doesn't directly answer your question, the following chart might help anyway:

http://www.monavie.com/onthemove/pdfs/i ... t_2007.pdf

[wserra]

If you do a search for Monavie, you'll find many claims that they do a $1 Billion dollars a year in sales (and even higher).

If you do a search for "oceanfront condominiums", you'll find some for sale in Arizona.

Now for a company selling strictly one product, a bottle of juice, this figure seems somewhat inflated.

Stinky, you have a gift for understatement.

As Monavie is a privately held company, is there any way to check their actual annual sales numbers?

Not for a member of the public. Example: USANA is tired of Minkow and company kicking its butt around the courtroom using its own numbers. Hence the effort to take it private. Needless to say, privately-held companies must file various tax documents, but there is no way to get them without the consent of the company. Using my own gift for understatement, I don't see that happening.

[wserra]

While it doesn't directly answer your question, the following chart might help anyway:

http://www.monavie.com/onthemove/pdfs/i ... t_2007.pdf

Looking at those figures yields interesting results, even assuming they're accurate - perhaps an unwarranted assumption, as there is no way to verify them.

First of all, look at the definitions, and note all of the qualifications on the distributors whose income is included. Although there is no way to tell for sure, it seems likely that those definitions omit a large number of distributors whose income is either $0 or close to it, thus skewing the numbers upward. Even so, the average income was $4700. Their web site describes this as an "unparalleled business opportunity", something true only for those who set their baseline by living in refrigerator boxes.

Moreover, even this paltry sum is skewed upwards by the use of an average instead of a mean, thus allowing the large incomes of those few on top of the pyramid to distort the number. Needless to say, those joining now have no chance to get to that level, since the spots are already taken and there aren't enough people in the world to create new ones - the nature of a pyramid. So, the mean distributor - the one at the 50% line - falls about one-third of the way into the "Star" category. Since the average weekly income for that category is $21, the mean distributor probably makes $10 per week - $15 if one wishes to be generous. That's about $750 per year for the mean Monavie distributor - assuming their unverifiable figures are accurate.

Don't spend it all in one place.

[ibofightback]

MonaVie's $1billion sales claim is for cumulative sales since they began operation. I don't know if this is in actual sales to their distributors or at "estimated retail", ie the price if sold at full price to a non-distributor

[Stinky McGurk]

Yes, I see that's how the company is advertising that fact now:

Major Milestone in MonaVie History

06/30/2008

MonaVie is pleased to announce that it has reached a significant milestone in its short history. MonaVie has now reached $1 billion in cumulative sales since its inception in 2005.

That's what - $1 billion in 3 years?

Hmmm... I wonder if somebody sent a copy of that press release to the IRS and asked them whether or not the number is based on actual sales to their distributors or at "estimated retail", if they would know?