Purse Party Blog

The History of The Home-Party Method of Sales

The home-party method of sales was implemented more than 70 years ago, and today it has expanded into home parties of almost every kind, with one of the biggest trends being purse parties. In1931, a previously successful door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman started his own direct-marketing company called Stanley Home Products. One of its salesmen started making record-breaking sales by implementing his new home-party method. Stanley converted its marketing from door-to-door to the home party model by 1940. Throughout the 40s, this marketing style brought women into sales, giving them the flexibility they couldn’t get in other jobs. It allowed them to work a lot or a little and to set their own schedules.

In the early 1950s, one single-mom saleswoman took her Stanley home-party success with her to the head of the Tupperware company, which became a leader in the home party field. Virtually all other early home party sales companies were started by people who’d been involved in Stanley or Tupperware. And the concept is alive and thriving today.

The concept is that products can be demonstrated (mostly by females since the 1960s) in the living rooms of female hostesses who volunteer their homes and invite their female friends to attend a “party.” The saleswomen demonstrate to many people at a time and take orders from many people at once. This system is more efficient than knocking on one door at a time. The hostesses are rewarded with prizes or free products. The guests have a good excuse for an evening out and are rewarded with a few hours of fun interaction and bonding with their peers. In return, the guests feel somewhat obligated to the hostess to place an order for the product. Today there are home parties for every kind of product: candles, arts and crafts, health, wine, baby, lingerie, adult novelties, beauty, and home (including Tupperware).

What is puzzling about the long-lastingness of the home party method of sales is that it is so contrary to the overall growing social trend away from in-person socializing. People used to regularly get together with friends and relatives for fun, work bees, visiting, worshipping, playing, and more. People used to interact with their neighbors. Now we can live next door to someone forever and never introduce ourselves. We are more likely to interact with people through email, instant messaging, gaming, social networking, or the telephone than go for coffee with someone.

The continued success of home parties has been apologetically explained as an overall retro trend toward nesting and adding luxuries to our lives. It’s deeper than that. It’s still a successful way of selling products, some of which aren’t sold any other way. (To buy, you must attend.) I think its biggest reason for continued viability is that the sellers, hostesses, and buyers are women who are still turning the sales process into a fun, social shopping event that continues to fill an ever-growing social void in our lives. Is anyone ready for a Miche bag purse party?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.