International payments processing best pratices:

The offline to online payments evolution of the Direct Selling industry.

The dawn of the modern era of direct selling began in 1886 when David McConnell, an unknown 28 year old sales man, founded what would become Avon Products Inc, today the largest direct sales company in the world with revenues in excess of $11B in 2008. In the grand tradition of some of the earliest direct selling companies, McConnell sold books door-to-door, giving out perfume to entice women to buy his books. His perfume became so popular that he eventually dispensed with the books and formed the California Perfume Company in New York City, the forerunner to today’s Avon. The rest is history.

The objective of this white paper is to provide an overview of the direct selling industry and to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that direct selling companies face in terms of international expansion and optimization of their online e-commerce payments strategy.