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Single Level Direct Selling

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World Federation of Direct Selling Association (WFDSA) has defined direct selling as “on non-fixed retailing places and through the use of face to face way, the product and service are sold directly to the consumers.” Robert, Peterson & Wotruba (1996) also describe direct selling as a face to face selling without fixed retailing sites. This can also be described as a distribution method for consumptive product or service through personnel contact (sales personnel to the consumer) and at different commercial locations. The natures of consumptive and distribution way are emphasized from direct selling (Rosenbloom 1993).

Direct selling can be either single level direct selling or multi-level direct selling. In this case we are interested in single level direct selling that Mary Kay uses. Here direct sellers are also the consumers and they also sell the company product or service to the company consumer. The income of direct sellers comes directly from the retailing he or she sells the product to the final consumer (Robert et al 1996). Mary Kay was founded in 1960 with its direct seller called Cosmetology Consultant. Direct seller is the only sale channel of Mary Kay, thus when consumers want to order Mary Kay’s products, the consumer has to find a cosmetology consultant he or she knows who buy cosmetics from the company at a wholesale price and sell to end-users at a retail price. They maintain personal relationships with their end-user consumers and deliver product to them after it is ordered; it is a high-service purchasing relationship from the consumer’s Point of view. Consultants thus act as both distributors and retailers (Coughlan, Anderson, Stern & El-Ansary 2006).

Marketing flows shows the movement of products and services...

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