2013 was a year of incredible growth and success for our company and much gratitude is owed to our hard working executive team and to our dedicated UnFranchise Owners around the world! Here’s a look back at some of our favorite moments from 2013:
January: Thousands of entrepreneurs joined us in Miami for the 2013 Market America World Conference! Amber and Loren launched Lumière de Vie, new site improvements for SHOP.COM and UnFranchise.com were shared, Alejandro Sanz performed, and Jacki Blasko was awarded the Jerry Siciliano Award.
February: We shared information about our new partnership with Bongo International, explored updates to UnFranchise Mobile, and guided you through setting up a MeetON account for the first time. Daily Deals launched for the first time on SHOP.COM!
March: Market United Kingdom celebrated their first birthday this month and JR and Andrew Weissman visited Spain to encourage growth and development. The SHOP.COM team was busy this month, as SHOP.COM Direct (office supplies!) launched, offering 5% Cashback and 20% IBV!
April: We kicked off April by launching a brand new UnFranchise® Business Presentation video for you to use to share with your teams and potential business partners. The team headed to Puerto Rico for several well-attended business building events and Amber Ridinger and Duane McLaughlin were married in a beautiful ceremony. The new UnFranchise® Business Account went live in the middle of the month and the Northern Regional Convention was the first of many regional events to be streamed live on MeetON.
May: Each May, we celebrate Market America’s birthday and this year there were 21 candles on the cake! To celebrate in style, we officially launched GLOBAL.SHOP.COM, which has revolutionized the way we do business worldwide. Sarah Rose Stack shared the importance of ma WebCenters® with our blog readers and we introduced SHOP.COM on Instagram.
June: This month, Lumière de Vie was made available worldwide and it’s success continued to grow. We were excited to be featured in Direct Selling News’ Top 100 at spot #27! Only a few days later, JR announced our new partnership with Mercent. Facebook introduced hashtags in the middle of the month and in SHOP.COM news, BMV by SHOP.COM Marketplace officially launched – allowing customers to shop for books, e-books, movies, music, and more with 2% Cashback and 5% IBV.
July: The month kicked off with ES.SHOP.COM officially launching for our customers in Spain. With only a month to go until International Convention, JR invited you to join us in Greensboro! ShopBuddy was updated this month to feature a search engine integration – helping you and your customers to be alerted to deals even when you’ve forgotten to sign in to your SHOP.COM account. The Gold Alliance was unveiled, offering an exciting new way to cash in at International Convention. Lastly, the Sign Up Wizard received some new enhancements to make the process even more user friendly.
August: For the first time, we offered attendees at International Convention the ma® Event News Event Companion – a mobile website with event information, a concourse map, breakout locations, places to eat in Greensboro, a transportation guide, and more! Many new products were launched live at the event, including health & nutrition products, new Motives products, and the all-new DNA Miracles and DNA Miracles Natural baby care line from Amber & Duane. Marc shared with the audience that our team is now working on Consumer Packaged Goods for SHOP.COM (more info on that to come if you’re joining us for 2014 World Conference!) After the event was over, the new homepage design for SHOP.COM went live and we began discussing the advantages of using the new SHOP.COM Home Advisor. Before the end of this (busy!) month, JR announced his Global Unification and Cross-Pollination series on MeetON.
September: Our #IHeartMA Instagram campaign launched this month, which has been an incredible way to engage with our favorite entrepreneurs and spotlight your photos on our social media sites! Loren hosted several Motives Mavens in NYC and the Motives Instagram success continued to blossom. A small group of UnFranchise Owners also took part in the fall Moving Up Seminars; intensive training session to dig down into what makes your business a success and how to achieve your business goals. This month, we also began spotlighting PIN Level successes on the ma Blog! At the end of the month, SHOP.COM Direct Electronics Outlet launched.
October: For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Market America partnered with Earlier.org to offer support through the sale of two of our products. A new Isotonix® product – Bromelain Plus – was launched. This month, we were honored to receive two local awards, including one from the Better Business Bureau. ma® University Orientation and Product Symposium East was held in Pennsylvania and Fat Joe began working hard to build his team of UnFranchise® Owners. At the end of the month, UnFranchise® Mobile was made available for the UK, Australia, and Hong Kong.
November: We recapped an incredibly successful Leadership School for Market Taiwan with over 20,000 entrepreneurs in attendance and announced our holiday hashtag, #shopcomholidays within the first few days of the month! The Canadian Regional Convention was held this month and we launched a blog series with holiday tips from UnFranchise® Owners. JR shared updates to the Home Advisor, Shopping Annuity, and Transfer Buying. We sent a social media team member to the Northeast Regional Convention for the first time and she shared her personal experience on the blog. To wrap up the month, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends and family and saw an incredibly successful Black Friday weekend for SHOP.COM.
December: We were excited to share a Cyber Monday surprise with you this year! Isotonix® Daily Essentials Packets were launched to much applause! Our executive team spent a week in Miami reviewing 2013 and setting goals for the new year. We invited you to join in with a different topic each day and loved reading your responses! We recapped a year of the ma Blog’s Shop Consultant Spotlight feature (and we’ll be sharing a new feature with you soon!). A few days ago we shared our top 10 blog posts of 2013 to close out a successful year of blogging.
THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make this a successful, memorable year for Market America & SHOP.COM. We know that with hard work, dedication, and vision, 2014 will be our best year to date!