Avon, the world’s oldest direct-sales beauty company, got its start in 1886 after door-to-door book salesman David McConnell began offering free perfume to attract female customers.

When the perfume proved more popular, McConnell ditched the books and started the California Perfume Company, which his son later renamed after Shakespeare’s birthplace. McConnell hired 50-year-old Mrs. P. f. E Albee to peddle perfume and recruit a sales team, giving women one of the first opportunities to work outside the home and earn an income in an era when this was far from the norm. Avon’s first catalog was printed in 1905 and its first print advertisement appeared the following year in Good Housekeeping, which 25 years later gave its seal of approval to eleven Avon products, a record for one company.......

Questions

1. What factors contributed to Avon’s initial market success? How did these factors evolve over time?

2. What is Avon’s value proposition for its customers, its sales force, and its stakeholders?

3. How did the role of personal selling change during the past several decades? Can personal selling continue to be a viable business model, given the ubiquity of social media and mobile communications?