Direct Selling Association

Direct Selling by the Numbers - Calendar Year 2004

Download the DSA Fact Sheet

Industry Statistics
(Calendar year 2004 unless otherwise noted)
Estimated 2004 U.S. Retail Sales
Estimated 2004 U.S. Salespeople
Growth Rate
Retail Growth Rate Comparison
Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups
Location of Sales (calendar year 2003)
Percent of Sales by Census Region (calendar year 2003)
Sales Strategy
Compensation Structure by Percent of Firms
Compensation Structure by Percent of Sales Dollars
Compensation Structure by Percent of Salespeople

Salesforce Demographics
(* indicates data from DSA's 2002 National Salesforce Survey)
Gender (2003 data)
Age*
Marital Status*
Education*
Independent Contractor/Employee Status (2003 data)
Hours Per Week Dedicated to Direct Selling (2003 data)
Average Time Spent on Direct Selling Tasks*
Main Reasons for Becoming a Direct Sales Representative*
Percent of Salespeople by Distributorship Type (2003 data)

See data from prior years
Calendar year 2003
Calendar year 2002
Calendar year 2001
Calendar year 2000

Estimated 2004 U.S. Direct Sales:

$29.73 Billion

Estimated 2004 U.S. Salespeople

13.6 Million

1-, 5- and 10-year growth rates

Comparison with Retail Growth Rate

Percent of Sales by Major Product Groups

Personal care products (cosmetics, jewelry, skin care, etc.)	30.8%
Home/family care products (cleaning products, cookware, cutlery, etc.)	30.5%
Wellness (weight loss products, vitamins, etc.)	16.1%
Services/other	14.3%
Leisure/educational (books, videos, toys, etc.)	8.3%

Location of Sales (2003 data; reported as a percent of sales dollars)

Face-to-Face Selling 73.1%
In the home	61.9%
Workplace	6.7%
Temporary location	3.9%
Other locations	0.6%
Remote Selling 26.9%
Phone	15.6%
Internet	10.8%
Other remote selling	0.5%

Percent of Sales by Census Region (2003 data)

West	24.8%
Midwest	23.1%
Northeast	16.1%
South	36.0%

Sales Strategy
(method used to generate sales, reported as a percent of sales dollars)

Individual/Person-to-Person selling	69.8%
Party plan/group selling	27.8%
Customer placing order directly with firm (in followup to a face-to-face solicitation)	1.6%
Other	0.8%

Compensation Structure by Percent of Firms
(multilevel vs. single level)

Percent of firms

Compensation Structure by Percent of Sales Dollars
(multilevel vs. single level)

Percent of sales dollars

Compensation Structure by Percent of Salespeople
(multilevel vs. single level)

Percent of salespeople

Gender (2003 data)

Age

Marital Status

Independent Contractors/Employees (2003 data)

Hours per week (2003 data)

Less than 30 hours per week/30-39/40 or more

85.1%/7.6%/7.3%

Average Percent of Time Spent on...

Main Reason for Becoming A Direct Sales Representative

Additional income	36%
It's your business and making money through direct sales in important to you	31%
Discount/wholesale/free products	29%
Other	4%

Percent of Salespeople by Distributorship Type

One-person distributorship: female	71.9%
One-person distributorship: male	16.7%
Two-person distributorship	10.3%
Multi-person distributorship	1.1%

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