myWorld, formerly Lyoness, is a multi-level marketing company established in Austria in 2003. According to Lyoness, the company was active in more than 40 countries, spread over six continents, and their shopping community consisted of more than five million members as of 2016. In several countries Lyoness is suspected as being, or ruled as being, a pyramid scheme.
Business model
Shopping community
Lyoness operates an international, cross-sectoral shopping community, from which members and merchants presumably benefit through cashback discounts and customer loyalty, respectively. Lyoness announced that starting July 2014, all network marketing activities are to be bundled under the new brand "Lyconet".
The Lyoness shopping community currently has (as of July 2016) an estimated seven million members around the globe, who receive discounts while shopping at 80,000 Lyoness (2017) partners with over 300,000 points of acceptance. Through the discounts systems, members receive direct discounts of 1-5% in the form of cash back on every purchase made at a Lyoness partner. Depending on the country, the sum of the obtained discounts needs to be 5 or 10 euros or higher in order for it to be transferred to the bank account of the Lyoness member.
Cashback and Shopping Points
Cashback and Shopping Points are Member Benefits that are generated when purchasing at a Lyoness Loyalty Merchant. The benefits are depending on the merchant's conditions. Shopping Points can be used for Shopping Point Deals, which could be described as vouchers. Lyoness will transfer the earned Cashback to the bank account registered by the Member.
Friendship bonus
Next to discounts over personal purchases, Lyoness members receive an 0.5% commission over the purchases made by the people they have introduced to Lyoness, as well as 0.5% over the purchases made by the people introduced by the people they have brought in. Lyoness refers to this system as the ‘Friendship Bonus’.
Corporate structure
In 2004, the CEO of Lyoness, Hubert Freidl, was hired as the company's director. Lyoness comprises at least seven corporations registered in Switzerland, nine corporations registered in Austria and approximately 42 additional national and regional corporations all around the globe. The name "Lyoness" was derived from the Celtic mythological kingdom "Lyonesse". "Lyconet" was introduced in 2014 as a new trademark name for the same group of corporations.
International organisation
The Lyoness and Lyconet trademark names cover various corporate structures. The overarching holding corporation is named 'Lyoness International AG', which is supported by several administrative departments (which are registered corporate structures): including: Lyoness eBiz GmbH, Lyoness Dataservice GmbH, Lyoness Lyco Soft GmbH, Lyoness Child & Family Foundation, Lyoness Greenfinity Foundation.
Continental and country organisation
The continental organisations are subsidiaries of Lyoness International AG and are registered as stock corporations. These are: Lyoness Europe AG (founded in 2003), "Lyoness IMEA S.A." (2009), Lyoness North America Ltd., "Lyoness South America S.A.", "Lyoness Asia Ltd." (2011).
The country offices are subsidiaries of the continental stock corporations and are registered as privately owned, limited-liability companies.
Cooperations
Lyoness has initiated Cashback cooperations with several sports clubs in Europe since 2015: MotoGP (via Dorna Sports) SK Rapid Wien Austrian Golf Association HC Slovan Bratislava SK Slavia Praha Legia Warszawa Federazione Italiana Golf Österreichische Sporthilfe Lechia Gdansk Lech Poznan Wisla Kraków Landesfeuerwehrverband Steiermark HC Kometa Brno Velux EHF Final4 Jokerit Helsinki
Social involvement
According to Lyoness, every purchase made by its members at its partner companies benefits the Lyoness Child and Family Foundation (a Lyoness-owned charity organisation) and the Lyoness Greenfinity Foundation (a Lyoness-owned organisation promoting sustainability).
In 2012, Lyoness announced that it and its affiliated Greenfinity foundation would be the title sponsors of the Austrian Open golf tournament for three seasons, through to 2014. Lyoness also sponsored the ‘European Juniors League’, a European football competition for youth teams, as well as Austrian club SK Rapid Wien. Lyoness announced that it would pay 9 million euros over 5 soccer seasons but would not be the main sponsor of Rapid Wien.