Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Avon, Tastefully Simple (?), Mary Kay, Amway…
What direct sell product did you end up spending the most $$$ on in your lifetime?
I always, ALWAYS dreaded these home parties. Worse than going to the dentist!
I would have to say mine was Longaberger baskets (get it? ABASKET) I still have a few but ended up selling several the last couple of years as my tastes and need for ALL these baskets changed. I also did like some of the Pampered Chef products.
HATED when people are work would have the food (Tastefully Simple?) parties.
Did buy some Mary Kay products for a couple years, but that trend came and went (or the seller did!) pretty quick.
Spent the most on Longaberger. I’ve heard the spiel about Dave Longaberger and Dresden OH and the office building shaped like a basket probably 20 times. More recently I’ve spent money on Arbonne.
Not so much parties- but Lularoe (clothes) and Rodan & Fields (skincare). Premier jewelry in the past (those were parties). Years ago- Mary Kay. More recently a young neighbor was selling Beauty Counter, but I like it pretty much.
I’m a bad friend, I actually went to a Pampered Chef party and bought nothing and I had one of those vacuum people come out, friend of a friend, told her ahead I would not buy it, she just needed to show she had done presentations, but was shocked I did not buy. We were in tough straights financially then, though most friends did not know it, they probably gossiped about how cheap I was/am
Not a party…but I bought the expensive Cutco knife set. Our fabulous day care provider’s son needed some folks to demo to…and we said fine. Well…$600 later, we owned a full knife set. I will say…we really like these knives and they sure were an improvement over the old ones we had.
I sold Tupperware while I was in grad school. Let’s just say…I needed some income, and it worked. But really, it was a low point in my working career! I did, however, get a lifetime supply of free Tupperware (well…I did have to “pay” for my sales kit but it was a very reduced price).
I own two Pampered Chef items that I would replace immediately if they broke. One is the manual chopper. It’s great. The other is a pitcher that has a thingy that mixes the orange juice or lemonade and it is part of the lid. You pump it up and down. So much better than shaking it!
^^ Have both of those. Haven’t used the chopper in awhile. The PChef thing I love is the tool you use when you brown ground beef. I was not expensive and really helps to crumble it nicely - and washes really good!
My kids and I loved Discovery Toys, so I’d happily attend a friend’s party once or twice a year. Other than that, Tupperware and Pampered Chef as fundraisers for a small local nonprofit.
A friend pitched Amway to us once - what a horrible evening.
I have Longaberger baskets…but I use them. Yep…overpriced, but most of mine came from a resale shop as a bargain! They really are good baskets.
I forgot about Doscovery Toys. They were great.
I hated the jewelry parties the most…all the different ones. There really wasn’t anything cheap to buy except the silver polishing cloth for $5. At one point, I had four or five of those!
I don’t think I have ever been invited to such party (lucky me)
I have been sucked in by quite a few infomercial when my kids were young and I was up late at night doing feeding. I bought a home dry cleaning machine that never worked.
Discovery toys many, many years ago! Yes- Beauty Counter is skincare are and makeup that is supposedly more natural and safer as far as chemicals- that’s its claim to fame.Good lotions and stuff, though.
Interesting that you still have those knives and that they turned out to be a great buy, @thumper1. When my husband was brand-new in his current job, one of his partners’ wives asked if we’d let her nephew practice his knife sales pitch on us, as he was just getting started. I said okay to be obliging (I would never ask anyone for this kind of favor myself), but that we couldn’t buy anything. We’d just bought a house and had a huge shopping list that didn’t include a $600 knife set. That was fine with her, but it wasn’t fine with the nephew. I thought my husband was going to have to throw him out - not something you really want to do to a knife salesman.
I’ve bought most from Pampered Chef, but I’ve only attended two parties. Many, many years ago. For the last 20 years I’ve been “busy” the night I’ve been invited to home parties. They are one big guilt trip to pressure you into buying some overpriced item. I liked Pampered Chef because they had some unique products not available at regular retail centers. That has since changed, and many of their items have been copied.
I loved how those home parties would tout being able to shop in the comfort of a home. That was before the Internet. I shop in the comfort of my own home exclusively now. But I’m in PJs, my hair is a mess, and I’m not wearing makeup.
My brother was a very good salesman for Cutco and made quite a bit of money during his college summers with them that helped pay for his private college tuition. It also landed him with some job offers after graduation because of his sales skills.
My biggest mistake was listening to an Amway presentation in my 20’s. Realized immediately that this was something not for me.
I used to enjoy drinks and the socializing (typically with an odd collection of people who would not otherwise be meeting in one place) except for the time my cousin’s wife served us cheap wine in 3 oz Dixie cups at her Pampered Chef party. I dislike jewelry parties.
I liked the Pampered Chef parties and the Tastefully Simple parties. I still like a few products from Tastefully Simple but buy them at local craft fairs when I happen to see one of their vendors. The parties I attended were all fun - women from my neighborhood, we usually knew most of those attending, and it gave us an excuse to get out for a night. I never hosted a party though. I could never sell anyone on anything and would never want to.
Mr. B was contacted on LinkedIn by a guy who had a profile of a former VP in the biotech field. Mr. B accepted the invitation thinking the person might be a useful contact. The guy pelleted Mr. with emails about some education-related proposal, so Mr. agreed to listen to the guy’s presentation which was supposed to be about chemistry education in the US. It turned out to be… an Amway pitch!!! Mr. was furious. He reported the guy to LinkedIn and blocked him. Lol.
