As e-commerce businesses expand rapidly in China, more companies are choosing the Internet as a platform to sell their products. However, Amway China, one of the country's largest direct sales companies, says it has other plans.

Liu Mingxiong, vice-president of Amway Greater China, revealed the company will not open online shops on the country's largest auction website, taobao.com, and does not allow any of its direct salespeople to open such shops, because "the sales mode will cause unfair competition among other staff members who focus on direct sales," Liu said.

"We oppose the new-style mode not because we do not like it," Liu explained. "Amway aims to provide its staff with an equal-footing opportunity to gain additional earnings or to set up their own careers. Therefore, we will not sacrifice their chance to seek temporary profits."

Liu also warned consumers to be cautious about so-called Amway products sold on the Internet with 50 percent discounts or more, saying, "they are too cheap to be true."

Last year, the sales revenue of Amway China hit 17.6 billion yuan, an increase of 28 percent compared with the year before. The figure makes up 31 percent of Amway's global sales revenue, making Amway China the company's largest subsidiary.

The business expansion in China is attributed to the country's improved laws and regulations concerning direct and pyramid selling since 2005, Liu said.

"The regulation helps us to define what is direct selling, and makes it clear that it is a legitimate trade," Liu said. But some Chinese people maintain they still could not tell the difference between direct selling from pyramid selling, which was once prevalent and is currently illegal in China.

He said Amway China will make more efforts to promote direct selling, in order to avoid the misunderstanding of customers.