Direct Selling by the Numbers
Calendar Year 2008
Download the 2008 DSA Fact Sheet
Industry Statistics
(Calendar year 2008 unless otherwise noted)
Estimated 2008 U.S. Retail Sales
Estimated 2008 U.S. Salespeople
Growth Rate - Sales
Growth Rate - Salesforce
Retail Growth Rate Comparison
Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
Location of Sales
Percent of Sales by Census Region
Types of Direct Sellers
Sales Strategy
Compensation Structure
Salesforce Demographics
(* indicates data from DSA's 2008 National Salesforce Survey)
Gender
Age*
Marital Status*
Education*
Time Spent on Direct Selling*
See data from prior years
Calendar year 2007
Calendar year 2006
Calendar year 2005
Calendar year 2004
Calendar year 2003
Calendar year 2002
Calendar year 2001
Calendar year 2000
| Estimated 2008 U.S. Direct Sales: | $29.6 Billion |
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| Estimated 2008 U.S. Salespeople | 15.0 Million |
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| 1-, 5- and 10-year growth rates (sales) |
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| 1-, 5- and 10-year growth rates (salesforce) |
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| Comparison with Retail Growth Rate (vertical axis = annual percent change) |
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Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
| Home/Family Care/Home Durables (cleaning products, cookware, cutlery, etc.) |
25.4% |
| Wellness (weight loss products, vitamins, etc.) |
22.7% |
| Personal Care (cosmetics, jewelry, skin care, etc.) |
21.5% |
| Services/other | 16.6% |
| Clothing & Accessories | 10.4% |
| Leisure/Educational (books, videos, toys, etc.) |
3.4% |
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Location of Sales (reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Face-to-Face Selling 76.7% | |
| In the home | 71.8% |
| Temporary location | 2.5% |
| Workplace | 2.2% |
| Other Location | 0.2% |
| Remote Selling and Autoshipments 22.9% | |
| Internet | 11.9% |
| Phone | 8.4% |
| Other remote selling and autoship | 3.0% |
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Percent of Sales by Census Region
| West | 27.1% |
| Midwest | 21.7% |
| Northeast | 16.1% |
| South | 35.1% |
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Types of Direct Sellers
| Personal Users | 39.8% |
| Non-Purchasers | 22.3% |
| Product Retailers | 21.1% |
| Business Builders | 16.6% |
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Sales Strategy
(method used to generate sales, reported as a percent of sales dollars)
| Individual/Person-to-Person selling | 66.3% |
| Party plan/group selling | 25.7% |
| Customer placing order directly with firm and autoship (in followup to a face-to-face solicitation) |
7.4% |
| Other | 0.6% |
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Compensation Structure
(multilevel vs. single level)
| Percent of firms | 93.8%/6.2% |
| Percent of Sales | 96.3%/3.7% |
| Percent of Sellers | 99.4%/0.6% |
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Gender
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Age (from 2008 National Salesforce Survey)
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Marital Status (from 2008 National Salesforce Survey)
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Education (from 2008 National Salesforce Survey)
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Hours Spent on Direct Selling Per Week (from 2008 National Salesforce Survey)
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