[lbo-talk] Re: direct sales ( what it used to be called)

snit snat snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com
Tue Dec 21 15:06:42 PST 2004


At 05:09 PM 12/21/2004, frank scott wrote:
> "I have always detested Rainbow and Kirby vacuum cleaner companies
>because
> they always preyed on the poorest of poor, it seemed to me. "
>
>don't know about rainbow, but kirby is the most expensive vacuum cleaner
>out there, and there's no way it can be marketed to poor people...the
>sales force aims at the middle and upper end, exclusively...the things
>cost way over a thousand bucks...

they put you on these dorky payment plans. $20/month forever.

what i mean is that they _market_ to the poor to get them to sell. _that_ is their marketing strategy and those people end up knowing other poor people to whom they try to sell the vacuum. they are instructed to tell their friends and family that they want to come to your house to practice. the point, however, is to convince your family or friend to buy one -- on the payment plan. when that fails, and for those who keep pluggin away, they start moving outward to people they don't know.

there's no direct marketing to the consumer, as you see with other products. Avon and Tupperware hardly ever used to run ads and commercials. they do now because the traditional sales/marketing structure on which they'd built their empires fell apart when women started entering the paid employment market.

the whole marketing scheme so annoys me that I couldn't keep my mouth shut when the company I worked for started moving in that direction. and marketing dude tried to get me to hit my friends and colleagues (on lists like this!!) to become "sellers".

retch. gag. hurl.

the whole point was to get people to become sellers by telling them how they could make money. when you looked closely at the scheme, however, all the marketing depended on the individual--most people I know don't have that kind of marketing network in place. for those that do, they might actually make money. for the rest, however, it would be nickel and dime for the individual. for the company, though, they were just hoping to rake in 1000s and 10s of 1000s of nickels and dimes.


>lots of gullibility and naiveté, but also a human contact that is denied
>in just about every other aspect of marketing among - overwhelmingly -
>working class people...

I've sold Avon before. (Where's Cat? She has too I think!) _None_ of this was part of Avon or Tupperware or Mary Kay when I did it. I don't really think it provided lost community for the women who did it in my mother's generation, either. They already had that. For most women it was just a way to get the things you wanted at a discount and, for others, it was a way to make extra money.

I can't count on my hands and feet all the parties I attended as a little kid (i.e., far more than 30... lordy! my mother trekked around a lot. I can remember sitting under the tables as they all sat around gabbing and ooohing and ahhing!) The women got together for coffee and bullshit sessions no matter what, tupperware/mary kay/avon/other parties were just extra. There were some clothing lines, too, because I can remember doing a couple of fashion shows for my friend's mother who sold some line of clothing to raise money for Eastern Star and another women who did it to raise money for Kiwanis.

I don't have much of a problem with these things. It was the kirby and rainbow modle that irritated b/c it promised riches.

Alas, I went to high school with a guy who actually did make a ton of money selling them and moving up the pyramid.

kelley

"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."

--Bruce Sterling



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