Direct Selling by the Numbers
Calendar Year 2006
Download the DSA Fact Sheet
Industry Statistics
(Calendar year 2006 unless otherwise noted)
- Estimated 2006 U.S. Retail Sales
- Estimated 2006 U.S. Salespeople
- Growth Rate
- Retail Growth Rate Comparison
- Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
- Location of Sales
- Percent of Sales by Census Region
- Sales Strategy
- Compensation Structure
Salesforce Demographics
(* indicates data from DSA's 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
- Gender
- Age*
- Marital Status*
- Education*
- Full-time vs. Part-time
- Average Time Spent on Direct Selling Tasks*
- Main Reasons for Becoming a Direct Sales Representative*
Worldwide data
See data from prior years
- Calendar year 2005
- Calendar year 2004
- Calendar year 2003
- Calendar year 2002
- Calendar year 2001
- Calendar year 2000
Estimated 2006 U.S. Direct Sales: $32.18 Billion
Estimated 2006 U.S. Salespeople 15.2 Million
1-, 5- and 10-year growth rates
Comparison with Retail Growth Rate (vertical axis = annual percent change)
Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
| Clothing & Accessories/personal care (cosmetics, jewelry, skin care, etc.) |
33.7% |
| Home/family care/home durables (cleaning products, cookware, cutlery, etc.) |
26.7% |
| Wellness (weight loss products, vitamins, etc.) |
20.3% |
| Services/other | 15.1% |
| Leisure/educational (books, videos, toys, etc.) |
4.2% |
Location of Sales (reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Face-to-Face Selling | 75.2% |
|---|---|
| In the home | 66.9% |
| Workplace | 3.9% |
| Temporary location | 3.8% |
| Other locations | 0.6% |
| Remote Selling | 24.8% |
| Phone | 12.8% |
| Internet | 11.6% |
| Other remote selling | 0.4% |
Percent of Sales by Census Region
| West | 26.0% |
| Midwest | 24.9% |
| Northeast | 15.9% |
| South | 33.2% |
Sales Strategy (method used to generate sales, reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Individual/Person-to-Person selling | 67.1% |
| Party plan/group selling | 28.9% |
| Customer placing order directly with firm (in followup to a face-to-face solicitation) |
3.4% |
| Other | 0.6% |
Compensation Structure (multilevel vs. single level)
| Percent of firms | 95.1%/4.9% |
| Percent of Sales | 96.7%/3.3% |
| Percent of Sellers | 97.9%/2.1% |
Gender
Age (from 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
Marital Status (from 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
Education (from 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
Hours per week
| Part-time/Full-time (30+ hours per week) | 89.9%/10.1% |
Average Percent of Time Spent on…(from 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
Main Reason for Becoming A Direct Sales Representative
| Additional income | 36% |
| It's your business and making money through direct sales in important to you | 31% |
| Discount/wholesale/free products | 29% |
| Other | 4% |
Worldwide Sales
Worldwide Salesforce
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