Discount Home Shoppers' Club

Discount Home Shoppers' Club, Inc.

Founded	1997
Founder(s)	Richard Burke
Headquarters	Englewood, Florida
Key people	Will Burke
Website	www.dhs-club.com

Discount Home Shoppers' Club, Inc. (DHS Club) is an American company based in Englewood, Florida. It was formed and incorporated in June 1997 by its founder and CEO, Richard Burke.

The DHS Club is a multi-business operation with such companies as the ClubShop Mall (online shopping), Glocal Income (business opportunity), Glocal Generation (personalized networking), DHS Club Kids (non-profit organization), Ducks Nest Retreat (cabin rentals) and ClubShop Rewards (customer loyalty reward program).

The DHS Club tries to promote group buying power, and an economic community of people helping people.

History

The DHS Club's first office was an apartment over founder Richard Burke's garage. Soon after the DHS Club started hiring employees, it was moved into a small office in Englewood, Florida. The DHS Club's first priority was to establish a membership base, so the first people Burke recruited to become DHS Club independent sales reps (VIP Members) was his oldest son Will Burke and good friend Paul Spence. The incentive to become a DHS Club VIP Member was to create a residual income by recruiting others to become DHS Club VIP Members and to save money on the products and services the DHS Club had to offer. One of the first main product the DHS Club had to offer at a discount was the Web TV. By 2000 the DHS Club created an online shopping mall for their DHS Club Members that rewarded their members back with cash back rebates. ClubShop Mall online stores included Wal-Mart, Amazon and Dell.

By 2001, The DHS Club had over 1 million people join the DHS Club’s online shopping mall and business opportunity.

In 2002, The DHS Club test marketed an offline shopping rewards program with participating Merchants, so DHS Club Members can save money and earn Reward Points on their offline purchases with restaurants, florists, salons, car repair shops and many other types of merchants around the world. The DHS Club also purchased around 20 acres (81,000 m²) of land in Southeast Tennessee and created a corporate retreat property and cabin rental property.

In December 2006, the DHS Club and ClubShop Mall were featured on the television show, "The World's Greatest", which was shown on cable networks throughout the United States.

By the end of 2007, ClubShop Malls were opened in the Netherlands Antilles, Malaysia and Suriname.

Controversy

In the early 2000s, DHS Club policy allowed DHS Club VIP Members to sign-up people for free to become DHS Club Members. With this policy being so easy to sign up new members, a few DHS Club VIP Members took advantage of this policy by signing people up to be DHS Club Members without their consent. By the time the DHS Club noticed this issue it was too late. The DHS Club was put on many blacklist by spam prevention groups to prevent the DHS Club from sending email and made DHS Club revenues drop 70%.

In 2002, the DHS Club announced that they created a “Zero Tolerance Spam Policy” as well as a new standard of enforcement of this policy by instituting a full double opt-in process for all membership requests. A full double opt-in process ensures that no one is registered as a DHS Club Member without providing authorization or approval by confirming their membership request.

References

• Off, Gavin (2003-10-04). "Rewards program returns to Englewood". Charlotte Sun Herald. Archived from the original on 2004-06-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20040619235121/http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/100403/tp8bz1.htm?date=100403&story=tp8bz1.htm. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
• Crouther, Rodney (1999-08-19). "Online shopping club grows into store-front business www.dhs-clubshop.com". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=HT&p_theme=ht&p_action=search&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAFED7510437AC7&p_field_direct-0=document_id. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
• Verleyen, Marc (2010-02-18). "Nieuwe spaarkaart bij handelaars in Deinze-Zulte" (in Dutch). Radio Canteclaer. Archived from the original on 2011-09-17. http://www.canteclaer.be/content/regionaal/regiobericht.php?volgnr=5185. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
• Helm, Burt (2004-09-15). "Are Hurricanes Swamping Spammers?". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2011-05-23. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2004/nf20040915_0180_db035.htm. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
• Hoyem, Mike (2004-07-11). "It's tough to can that spam". The News-Press. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/news_press/access/1804397111.html?FMT=ABS. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
• Hoyem, Mike (2004-07-19). "Florida delivers sunshine and spam". USA Today. Archived from the original on 2011-09-17. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2004-07-19-spam-central_x.htm. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 

External links

• Official website