// Retail sales among Direst Selling Association members now in excess of £1bn, a 45% Y-o-Y increase
// An estimated.631,000 people sell for brands such as Avon, The Body Shop, etc, in total in the UK
// Direct selling refers to direct-to-consumer “social shopping”, or Tupperware-style retail
Tupperware-style retail enjoyed significant growth throughout the pandemic, thanks to a significant increase in people signing up as direct sales representatives for major brands.
According to new data from the Direct Selling Association (DSA), there has been a 45 per cent year-on-year growth in “social shopping” sales following analysis of 54 leading UK direct selling brands, such as The Body Shop, Avon and book publisher Usborne.
The DSA said this increase meant more than £1 billion retail sales among its members was made in 2020, marking one of the strongest annual growth periods on record for the UK since the heyday of 1970s Tupperware parties.
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The DSA also found a significant increase in the number of people choosing to work as independent direct selling representatives compared to before the Covid pandemic, taking the total number of people earning this way in the UK to 631,000 – an increase of 12 per cent year-on-year.
“Direct selling has always been an industry powered overwhelmingly by women, and whilst working women have been hardest hit by the pandemic, it appears that many are taking control of their financial future by opting for more entrepreneurial styles of working,” DSA director general Susannah Schofield said.
“The last year saw the greatest pace of change in the retail channel’s history with the events of the pandemic serving as a catalyst for a rapid transformation to far more sophisticated and widespread support of direct selling via online platforms.
“It is largely due to this evolution and its effectiveness in facilitating both the new ways that consumers want to shop, and people want to work, that direct selling is seeing a renaissance.”
Direct selling is a channel of retail where products are sold directly to consumers outside of a fixed retail environment.
This could be via social events, Tupperware-style parties, social media events or online broadcasts, or through brochure distribution.
Individuals act as independent representatives and earn through commission paid on product sales.
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