In a press release dated September 12th, Avon stated they were withdrawing from the DSA because of their dissatisfaction with the organizations direction. They sent a letter, addressed to “U.S. direct selling colleagues”, which shares their decision was driven by two key issues:
1. They believe the DSA’s agenda in the U.S. is overly focused on issues of a few specific brands rather than industry-wide challenges.
2. They believe that the U.S. DSA Code of Ethics requires updating to better reflect the current state of the industry in the U.S.
Avon is not exiting the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations, local market DSAs, or other direct selling trade organization outside of the United States (many of which they are founding members of). They believe these associations play an important role for Avon. Avon continued to share that there are three major aspects of their business model that they believe further safeguards their representatives and consumers.
1. The Avon business model does not rely on nor does it encourage sales of inventory, training or business support materials between representatives. The core of their model is retailing.
2. Avon has reasonable return policies and representatives are not left holding excess inventory.
3. Avon limits earnings to three generations. They do