Selling products by the home-party method has been done for more than 70 years. Currently, there are products of all kinds marketed this way, some of the most popular being the ones at purse parties. The home-party trend came from the door-to-door sales movement, with a Fuller Brush salesman starting his own Stanley Home Products in 1931. One of his salesmen achieved record sales from initiating home parties, and so the company completely converted to that method by 1940. Home parties allowed many women to get into sales as much or as little as they wanted on their own schedules.
One single-mom in the early 1950s took her Stanley home-party sales success with her to Tupperware management and took that company to being the leader in home-parties. Virtually all the other early home-party businesses were led by people out of Stanley or Tupperware. And the home-party concept keeps mushrooming to this day.
The concept is that companies' products are demonstrated, usually by women (ever since the 1960s), in the living rooms of hostesses who provide their homes and invite some female friends to come to a "party." The saleswomen demonstrate products and take orders from many people at once. This is a much more efficient sales system than knocking on doors one by one. Party hostesses are rewarded with products or prizes. Guests are rewarded by having a good excuse for an evening out and a couple of hours of fun interaction and bonding with peers, and in return they typically feel some obligation to the hostesses to order some amount of the product. There are home parties these days for every variety of products: lingerie, adult novelties, beauty, wine, baby, health, candles, arts and crafts, home (including the perennial Tupperware).
The puzzling thing about the longevity of the home-party method of sales is that it's so opposite to the growing social trend of less and less in-person socializing. In the past, people would get together with relatives and friends for visiting, fun, work projects, worshipping, playing, sports, and much more. People would regularly interact with their neighbors. These days, people can live beside each other for years without ever introducing themselves. We are more apt to interact with each other through instant messaging, email, gaming, social networking, or the phone than go with someone for coffee.
Long-lived home-party sales successes have been apologetically explained simply as a retro female trend toward nesting and luxury seeking. But it's not that simple. Home parties have consistently proven to be a viable way to sell products. This cannot be explained as a trend. One reason this sales method lives on is that some products that women want can only be purchased this way. The main reason, though, is that women-the saleswomen, the hostesses, and the customers-continue to make the home-party sales process into a fun-filled shopping social event that fills a void (an ever-widening one) in our lives. Is anyone up for a Miche bag purse party?
One single-mom in the early 1950s took her Stanley home-party sales success with her to Tupperware management and took that company to being the leader in home-parties. Virtually all the other early home-party businesses were led by people out of Stanley or Tupperware. And the home-party concept keeps mushrooming to this day.
The concept is that companies' products are demonstrated, usually by women (ever since the 1960s), in the living rooms of hostesses who provide their homes and invite some female friends to come to a "party." The saleswomen demonstrate products and take orders from many people at once. This is a much more efficient sales system than knocking on doors one by one. Party hostesses are rewarded with products or prizes. Guests are rewarded by having a good excuse for an evening out and a couple of hours of fun interaction and bonding with peers, and in return they typically feel some obligation to the hostesses to order some amount of the product. There are home parties these days for every variety of products: lingerie, adult novelties, beauty, wine, baby, health, candles, arts and crafts, home (including the perennial Tupperware).
The puzzling thing about the longevity of the home-party method of sales is that it's so opposite to the growing social trend of less and less in-person socializing. In the past, people would get together with relatives and friends for visiting, fun, work projects, worshipping, playing, sports, and much more. People would regularly interact with their neighbors. These days, people can live beside each other for years without ever introducing themselves. We are more apt to interact with each other through instant messaging, email, gaming, social networking, or the phone than go with someone for coffee.
Long-lived home-party sales successes have been apologetically explained simply as a retro female trend toward nesting and luxury seeking. But it's not that simple. Home parties have consistently proven to be a viable way to sell products. This cannot be explained as a trend. One reason this sales method lives on is that some products that women want can only be purchased this way. The main reason, though, is that women-the saleswomen, the hostesses, and the customers-continue to make the home-party sales process into a fun-filled shopping social event that fills a void (an ever-widening one) in our lives. Is anyone up for a Miche bag purse party?
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