Home Sweet Biz
Women with corporate backgrounds go on their own to make money selling makeup, clothing and more
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 08-21-2005 | By Jennifer Brett
Online retailing has become an important component of home-based sales. Sales consultants often have their own Web pages on their company's main site and include the Web address on brochures mailed — or e-mailed — to potential customers
Shade Clothing is a Utah-based company that sells camisoles and T-shirts that cover skin left bare by low-rise jeans or plunging necklines. The proprietors, Chelsea Rippy and Char Garn, organized the first home party in September 2004. Last month, they did $180,000 in sales. "Profits have increased about 30 percent month to month," Garn said. "We've been growing really fast."
While their representatives are in the Western part of the country, they hope Web exposure will help them expand. "We're working on getting sales reps in all 50 states," Garn said.
Although the home-based industry is becoming ever modernized, distributors' success still relies on the personal touch. Peggy Crew of Roswell has just started her career as an Avon representative.
"I really, truly appreciate you taking the time to come to my house," she told the group of a dozen ladies who came to her first party, held recently in her living room
A former teacher and stay-at-home mother, Crew was having a fine time selling toys and maternity clothes on eBay until a conversation in the drive-through line pointed her in a new professional direction. She was out of moisturizer but just didn't have time to get to the mall, she told her friend Ashley Nelson as they waited for their children.
No problem, said Nelson, whipping out an Avon catalog. Crew soon became a regular customer, and when Nelson learned she and her husband were relocating to Texas, Crew signed on to take over Nelson's client list.
"This is the last thing I thought I would be doing," Crew said, "but I love it."