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Greensboro’s Market America is hiring 50 information technology workers to build its rapidly growing Internet-marketing business.

They’ll join the roughly 250 people working for Michael Brady, the former chief technology officer for LendingTree.com, a successful consumer credit site.

The company hopes the Internet emphasis will help it expand well beyond its traditional system of individual representatives who buy its products and sell them to friends and neighbors.

Market America, which sells its own consumer products, such as aloe juice and weight-loss programs, is cultivating partnerships with retailers who sell their goods through its Web site. The company gets a percentage of every sale made through its site.

By the end of the year, about half of the company’s roughly 600 employees will be working to fuel the elaborate www.marketamerica.com.

The site appears at first glance to be devoted strictly to Market America and its products. But the user quickly finds that the company isn’t afraid to direct customers to Target.com or other retailers if a different product is available there.

The tech workers will be monitoring dozens of different parts of the system. Some will be responsible for specific product lines. Others will write computer code to make all the Web sites compatible.

Brady will develop the system as it grows, he said.

J.R. Ridinger, president and chief executive officer, said the company isn’t worried about cannibalizing sales of its own products because he is confident that most of them are good enough to compete on their own.

His goal is to keep customers coming back to Market America’s site.

“We want to create almost an addictive shopping experience,” he said.

The company wants this to help, not hinder, the thousands of people who sell Market America products on their own. About 23,000 of those representatives will come to Greensboro starting Thursday for the company’s annual convention at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The company creates a Web page for each representative and they’ll be able to sell products personally or through that site, from which they’ll get full commission payments.

Keeping that online store stocked is a new line of cosmetics called Motives by Loren Ridinger, the company’s senior vice president and J.R. Ridinger’s wife.

Loren took the company’s original cosmetics line and revamped it last year. Since its introduction, the company said sales have grown by 50 percent.

In an imploding economy, she says women can still buy a $12 tube of lipstick to make themselves feel good without breaking the bank.

The company is also training individuals to meet with customers to show them how to use the products.

J.R. Ridinger said the company will never stop developing the complexity and utility of its Web site because new ideas are always possible.

It’s like a football team after training, Brady said: “Once it’s deployed, the regular season has just started.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com