Direct Selling by the Numbers
Calendar year 2000
Industry Statistics
(from DSA's 2001 Growth & Outlook Survey)
Salesforce Demographics
(from DSA's 1999 National Salesforce Survey)
Estimated 2000 U.S. Retail Sales: $25.57 Billion
Back to top
Estimated 2000 U.S. Salespeople 11.0 Million
Back to top
Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
Home/family care products
(cleaning products, cookware, cutlery, etc.) |
33.7% |
Personal care products
(cosmetics, jewelry, skin care, etc.) |
26.4% |
| Services/other |
16.9% |
| Wellness |
16.5% |
| Leisure/educational |
6.5% |
Back to top
Location of Sales (reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Face-to-Face Selling | 78.2% |
|---|
| In the home | 64.4% |
| Workplace |
8.7% |
| Temporary location | 4.1% |
| Other locations |
1.0% |
| Remote Selling | 21.8% |
|---|
| Phone |
14.7% |
| Internet |
5.5% |
| Other remote selling |
1.6% |
Back to top
Percent of Sales by Census Region
| West |
25.4% |
| Midwest |
23.8% |
| Northeast |
17.0% |
| South |
33.8% |
Back to top
Sales Strategy (method used to generate sales, reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Individual/Person-to-Person selling |
70.3% |
| Party plan/group selling |
27.7% |
Customer placing order directly with firm
(in followup to a face-to-face solicitation) |
1.7% |
| Other | 0.3% |
Back to top
Compensation Structure by Percent of Firms (multilevel
vs. single level)
| Percent of firms | 77.5%/22.5% |
Back to top
Compensation Structure by Percent of Sales Dollars (multilevel
vs. single level)
| Percent of sales dollars
| 73.9%/26.1% |
Back to top
Compensation Structure by Percent of Salespeople (multilevel
vs. single level)
| Percent of salespeople |
83.1%/16.9% |
Back to top
Gender
Back to top
Age
Back to top
Marital Status
Back to top
Education
Back to top
Independent Contractors/Employees
Back to top
Hours per week
| Less than 30 hours per week/30-39/40 or more
| 81.6%/8.6%/9.8% |
Back to top
Average Percent of Time Spent on…
Back to top
Main Reason for Becoming A Direct Sales Representative
| Additional income |
32% |
| Believe in the product/good product |
20% |
| Discount/wholesale/free products |
10% |
| Liked the presentation/organization/people |
3% |
| Be able to stay at home with children/parent |
3% |
| Personally use the product |
3% |
| Flexibility |
3% |
| Asked by relative |
3% |
| To be able to get the product more easily |
3% |
| Other |
20% |
Back to top
Percent of Salespeople by Distributorship Type
| One-person distributorship: female |
63.7 |
| One-person distributorship: male |
16.7 |
| Two-person distributorship |
16.6 |
| Multi-person distributorship |
3.0 |
Back to top
For further information email us at info@dsa.org
