Ding dong! Avon calling! : the women and men of Avon Products, Incorporated

The Avon Lady acquired iconic status in twentieth century American culture. This first history of Avon tells the story of a direct sales company that was both a giant in its industry and a kitchen-table entrepreneurial venture. With their distinctive greeting at the homes across the country--Ding Dong! Avon Calling!--sales ladies brought door-to-door sales of makeup, perfume, and other products to American women beginning in 1886. Working for the company enabled women to earn money on the side and even become financially independent in a respectable profession while selling Avon's wares to friends, family, and neighborhood networks. Ding Dong! Avon Calling! is the story of women and entrepreneurship, and of an innovative corporation largely managed by men that empowered women to exploit networks of other women and their community for profit. Founded in the late nineteenth century, Avon grew into a massive international direct sales company in which millions of "ambassadors of beauty" sat in their customers' living rooms with a sample case, catalogue, and a conversational sales pitch. Avon was unique in American business history for its reliance on women as representatives, promising them not just sales positions, but a chance to have a business of their own. Being an Avon Lady avoided the stigma that was often attached to middle-class women's work outside the home and enabled women to maintain the delicate balance of work and family. Drawing for the first time on company records she helped acquire for archives, Katina Manko illuminates Avon's inner workings, uncovers the lives of its representatives, and shows how women slowly rose into the company's middle and upper management. Avon called itself "The Company for Women" and championed its high flyers, but its higher echelons remained dominated by men well into the 1990s. Avon is more than perfumes and toiletries, but a brand built on women knocking on doors and chatting up neighbors. It thrived for more than a century through the deceptively simple technique of women directly selling beauty to women at home. The Avon Lady acquired iconic status in twentieth century American culture. This first history of Avon tells the story of a direct sales company that was both a giant in its industry and a kitchen-table entrepreneurial venture.With their distinctive greeting at the homes across the country--Ding Dong! Avon Calling!--sales ladies brought door-to-door sales of makeup, perfume, and other products to American women beginning in 1886. Working for the company enabled women to earn money on the side and even become financially independent in a respectable profession while selling Avon's wares to friends, family, and neighborhood networks.Ding Dong! Avon Calling! is the story of women and entrepreneurship, and of an innovative corporation largely managed by men that empowered women to exploit networks of other women and their community for profit. Founded in the late nineteenth century, Avon grew into a massive international direct sales company in which millions of "ambassadors of beauty" sat in their customers' living rooms with a sample case, catalogue, and a conversational sales pitch. Avon was unique in American business history for its reliance on women as representatives, promising them not just sales positions, but a chance to have a business of their own. Being an Avon Lady avoided the stigma that was often attached to middle-class women's work outside the home and enabled women to maintain the delicate balance of work and family. Drawing for the first time on company records she helped acquire for archives, Katina Manko illuminates Avon's inner workings, uncovers the lives of its representatives, and shows how women slowly rose into the company's middle and upper management. Avon called itself "The Company for Women" and championed its high flyers, but its higher echelons remained dominated by men well into the 1990s.Avon is more than perfumes and toiletries, but a brand built on women knocking on doors and chatting up neighbors. It thrived for more than a century through the deceptively simple technique of women directly selling beauty to women at home. The Avon Lady was a woman who sold cosmetics door-to-door and earned commissions on her sales. In the 1950s, she became famous in a long-running advertising campaign that featured a two-chime doorbell, “Ding Dong!,” followed by the greeting “Avon Calling!” At that time, more than 250,000 women worked as Avon Ladies, and together they represented the largest female direct sales force in the world. Avon began as the California Perfume Company in 1886. Its founder, David McConnell, had sought to provide women with an independent business opportunity largely hoping to soften the seedy reputation of itinerant peddlers. When the company created the Avon brand of cosmetics in the 1930s, changing its name to Avon Products in 1939, it stood as a leader in the direct selling industry and the only company to hire women exclusively as its representatives. This history explores the business of those representatives and the way they were managed. In the second half of the twentieth century, Avon became the largest direct sales company in the United States, spurred by a growing white suburban market. Avon hesitated until the late 1960s to develop recruiting and sales in the African American market, but by the 1970s it was regarded as a leader in affirmative action programs to diversify its workplace and promote women in management. Still, Avon’s executive suite remained a male preserve until Andrea Jung became its first female CEO in 1999. Although Avon closed its doors in 2016, it had earned a solid reputation as a company by women, and for women. ""Ding Dong! Avon Calling!" A whole generation of Americans can sing those words to the tune of a two-chime doorbell. The Avon Lady was made famous in the 1950s by the legion of suburban women who rang doorbells and gave away tiny lipstick samples shaped like bullets. Some would know the Avon Lady through a stack of catalogs left in a staff lounge or on a counter at the beauty shop. Today, the Avon Lady most likely appears as an e-representative through a webpage who, if requested, will personally deliver beauty and cosmetics products right to your door. The Avon Lady is a company representative who sells lipsticks and lotions, eye shadows and mascara, shampoo and perfume. She is an independent contractor, so she keeps a portion of her sales as commission and can build her business as big or as small as she wants. A woman in business, the Avon Lady serves as a model to test assumptions about what business is, what an entrepreneur does, how managers work, and what economic independence looks like. This book is a women's business history about a company that promoted women as entrepreneurs, not merely consumers. While Avon, known as the California Perfume Company during the first fifty years of its history, sold cosmetics and beauty products, this book is not about the products themselves. It instead focuses on the hundreds of thousands of women who owned their own businesses selling those products"-- Provided by publisher The Avon Lady was a woman who sold cosmetics door-to-door et earned commissions on her sales. In the 1950s, she became famous in a long-running advertising campaign that featured a two-chime doorbell, 'Ding Dong!,' followed by the greeting 'Avon Calling!' At that time, more than 250,000 women worked as Avon Ladies, et together they represented the largest female direct sales force in the world. Avon began as the California Perfume Company in 1886. Its founder, David McConnell, had sought to provide women with an independent business opportunity largely hoping to soften the seedy reputation of itinerant peddlers. When the company created the Avon brand of cosmetics in the 1930s, changing its name to Avon Products in 1939, it stood as a leader in the direct selling industry et the only company to hire women exclusively as its representatives. This history explores the business of those representatives et the way they were managed This first history of Avon traces the direct sales company's growth from its earliest days into an international corporation that operates in more than 60 countries and has had more than 4 million female representatives.