Helaine Olen, contributing editor at Pacific Standard and author of Pound Foolish talks about how home party companies are making waves, specifically in Silicon Valley:
The invitations began arriving shortly after I moved back to my native New York City in 2012. They all sounded eerily similar. Each offered a chance to spend some fun, quality time in an intimate setting with a few fellow moms—or “the girls”—while some sort of product, usually but not always clothing, was “shared.”
One of them beckoned me to a “trunk show” of jewelry and accessories by the company Stella & Dot, to be held at an Upper West Side brownstone. Another offered “a chance to share girlfriend time, refreshments and shop [sic]” for garments bearing the Ruby Ribbon label, a clothing and undergarment line.
A little Googling confirmed my suspicion: Like Amway and Mary Kay, these newer companies are multi-level marketing programs. Which is to say they offer their salespeople two ways to make money: by selling products directly to friends and neighbors, and—far more efficiently—by selling friends and neighbors on the idea of becoming salespeople themselves, and collecting a commission on their recruits’ earnings.
Suffice it to say, this was not exactly what I expected from a