Company Spotlight
January 2011
Welcome to Webstar World – It’s direct selling – but not as we know it!
A futuristic new shopping experience is about to take the direct selling world by storm. The stuff of science fiction, it’s all part of the latest internet venture by German-based health supplements provider WellStar. Features writer MADELINE CLARK finds out more…
If WellStar’s latest internet activities sound a little out of this world, it’s probably because they really are!
A groundbreaking new development which will soon be available on the company’s pioneering website, Webstar, is straight out of the 3D blockbuster movie Avatar, and it looks set to revolutionise the way we shop online.
WellStar has created a virtual reality world, where you will shortly be able to shop till you drop from the comfort of your home – in the form of a walking, talking 3D avatar. You will even be able to meet up with avatar friends in your favourite shopping malls and swap notes about purchases. And, most important, you will be able to generate new business by recommending products to the online community.
This unique concept is a world first and should be available to Webstar users by the spring. It is the latest in a series of developments that have resulted in the creation of the first internet platform that combines traditional MLM marketing with the booming markets of social networking, e-commerce and health.
WellStar founder and CEO Christian Weisner explained: “This new 3D development is all part of our wider internet strategy, which aims to provide opportunities for everybody to be part of the e-commerce shopping market.
“We have called it the Webstar 3D Virtual Group Shopping® Platform, and it will allow website users to create their own 3D avatar, which will be similar to a puppet you might see in a computer game. Everybody is getting very excited about 3D technology at the moment. All the big movies are in 3D, the next football championships are going to be in 3D, and 3D television sets are also becoming popular. This new concept will make shopping online much more fun while also allowing customers to earn bonuses by recommending products on the internet.” He added: “WellStar is the first company worldwide to combine these two concepts and reward successful recommendations with bonuses, paving the way into the future for direct selling.”
WellStar was founded in 2003 as a traditional direct selling company specialising in health and fitness supplements derived from microalgae, a plant substance rich in antioxidants known to eliminate free radicals. The benefits of microalgae were discovered by Christian’s mother, Dr Kewan Grashoff, a specialist in natural medicine and co-founder of the company.
The internet became a key part of WellStar’s strategy in 2007 when Ali Bazooband, General Manager Europe, joined the company and a decision was made to put the whole company on the internet – with everything from customer services to placing orders all going completely online. Ali, a highly experienced top manager, had a key role in this process. “Since then, we have been a cloud-based company,” said Christian. “This has resulted in so many benefits for Distributors. It means they can instantly see the volume of sales on their computers as orders are placed, with a huge amount of paperwork being eliminated.”
In 2009, the company developed its internet activities further with the launch of its free online health and fitness coaching platform, Webstar. “This turned out to be a fantastic marketing tool, because it meant that Distributors no longer had to go out and sell products. They simply hand out free online coaching vouchers, which will direct people to our website,” Christian explained. He went on to say, “Anybody can go out and give away something for free. It’s so easy to talk to people and ask whether they are interested in losing weight. When someone receives a free voucher, they can then register themselves on Webstar, and because the vouchers are personalised, Webstar is able to connect the voucher user to the Distributor, who can then contact them online, on the phone or by email.
“This is a unique and totally different approach. Creating the awareness within the customer about health and nutrition not only helps people to achieve their goals but it also takes away the fear the Distributor has about having to sell. By simply giving away free vouchers, they know who’s interested and who is setting health and fitness goals. Then they have a reason to call the customer and ask about their response to Webstar, and sales will develop from there.”
Following the success of its Vitality Coaching platform, WellStar recently decided to expand its website even further, with the launch of the Webstar Social Networking Community. This development meant Distributors would no longer have to send emails or call customers but could connect with them online, just like on Facebook.
The venture has already developed into a thriving online community where people can talk online, share photos or videos and where, very shortly, they will be able to shop with friends in Webstar’s virtual reality shopping world.
Christian explained that the inspiration behind the development of its unique Social Network Shopping concept came partly from the success of Facebook. “Facebook is about sharing information and this is what direct selling is all about – sharing information about great products,” he pointed out.
Christian was particularly inspired by an article in a German magazine which quoted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The quote read: “If at some point users could recommend products to other people and purchases could be made directly on the basis of these recommendations that would be the new business opportunity of the millennium.”
WellStar recognised this vision and has become the first German company to act on it. “We saw how Facebook had gone from one million users to 500 million users within four years and felt that if we could develop a concept that combined the growth of e-commerce and social networking we would be onto a winner. We have called that concept Webstar Referral Shopping®, and it is a unique concept which we have patented worldwide,” said Christian.
Christian pointed out that direct sales had its biggest growth in the 70s and 80 and 90s but, more recently, traditional direct sales in Europe have been growing by just 3 per cent each year, while e-commerce is doubling every two years. “I believe traditional network marketing had got stuck in outdated strategies, and I absolutely believe that the new generation of network companies – those who use the internet and the online community – will all be even bigger than the current direct selling giants in the not too distant future.
“One big difference with Webstar is that it is free to all users. The unique concept behind it is that you don’t just shop – you can also recommend products online. With the click of your mouse you can recommend a product and send a link to Facebook or Twitter or to anybody worldwide. If a product is purchased on the basis of this recommendation then bonuses are paid to the referrer, buyer and the upline, too. Bonuses can be paid in cash or can be used to buy products.”
Christian quotes a recent study by UK-based Forrester Research, revealing that 75 per cent of all online buying decisions are a result of friends’ recommendations and that this is the number one reason for buying a product. Currently, 80 per cent of WellStar’s own brand products are sold on Webstar, but with the introduction of Webstar Shopping World, other top selling brands will also be available, many at discount prices.
He continued: “WellStar has contracts with the biggest media companies selling books and music online in Germany and also with the biggest companies selling cosmetics, perfumes and fashion, with more than 1,000 brands and one million products on offer. We also give huge discounts compared with the prices you pay on High Street.”
Meanwhile, another big development at WellStar focuses on the huge boom in the use of the internet via mobile phones. Christian explained: “They say in two years the mobile internet will be bigger than the stationary internet – because in one house you may have just one computer but several mobile phones. Both the mobile phone trends and the demand for 3D technology are both important areas that will have key roles in WellStar’s internet developments over the coming months.”
He added: “Traditional network marketing needs to be reinvented to make it sexy again. You have to make it better than the internet. You have to be more exciting than traditional business.
“We already have up and running the Webstar App that enables Webstar users to access the website through their mobile phones 24 hours a day, but soon they will also be able to shop from their mobile phones and use the referral shopping system to recommend products. For Distributors, it will be sales volume heaven. They will be able to do business 24 hours a day without even leaving home.”
WellStar currently operates in nine countries across Europe and beyond and has 50,000 distributors selling its products. But as a result of its latest internet developments, the company now has in excess of 500,000 online users recommending products. “From now on, all our customers will be able to earn money from recommending our products; so all our customers will be Distributors,” said Christian.
Though the company’s extensive internet activities have contributed greatly to rapidly increasing sales, Christian says the company’s innovative approach is the key to its success. “Every day we ask ourselves how we can make things easier for our Distributors. Every day we work towards providing the best company for our Distributors that will give everybody a chance to be successful. We treat them like very good customers. All the time we try to come up with fresh innovations, so they will always have new tools to make life easier for them.
“We are clearly on our way to the top. WellStar is our future. We are not in it for fun. We are a family-owned company and have invested our own money into the business. We don’t use investors. All our money has come from our own pockets. We plough all our earnings into the future of the business with the satisfaction of knowing we are helping people to have extra income without having to invest thousands of euros. Our goal is to provide the tools for people to have greater income and greater health.”
The overall annual sales volume of WellStar is more than 100 million euros, but Christian said: “In the last seven years we have established ourselves as the European market leader for microalgae. In the next 10 years, with our online platform, Webstar, we hope to become a billion-dollar company in the e-commerce market.”
How Webstar Referral Shopping® Works…
In the partner shops of the Webstar Shopping World, interesting products can easily be highlighted and put onto personal recommendation or wish lists. You can then directly recommend these products to friends via the news stream. Users can post their recommendations onto each other’s walls, to groups, as direct personal messages, to the complete community or even beyond the Webstar community through links with Facebook and Twitter.
Webstar Open Stream Referral Shopping: If you want to buy products yourself and cannot find matching recommendations from your friends on your own message wall, you have the option to search communitywide for specific product recommendations and thus access the recommendations of all community members.
Webstar Referral Shopping Archive: All your recommendations and those of other Webstar users are sorted into categories and archived separately after a period of seven days. In this way, the worldwide largest archive of honest friend-to-friend recommendations is going to grow. If you cannot find any matching recommendations in the product search on your own message wall or in the Webstar Open Stream, you are guaranteed to find something in Webstar’s link archive.
