It’s old news now. Avon left the DSA. In their announcement, they stated the DSA’s Code of Ethics needed revision. Specifically, Cheryl Heinonen at Avon said,
“We believe the association’s agenda in the U.S. is overly focused on the issues of a few specific brands rather than industry-wide challenges. . . We believe that the U.S. DSA Code of Ethics requires updating to better reflect the current state of the industry in the U.S.”
In a separate article in the Washington Post, Heinonen gave a quote that shed a little light on what she meant. She said,
“I think it’s problematic when you sell inventory — bulk product — that the person who is acquiring it can’t use themselves and sometimes may not know how to sell,” Heinonen said. She added that the language in the trade association’s code of ethics on this point and other aspects of consumer protection need to be firmer.”
The problem: inventory loading. And I’ll drill down a little deeper because inventory loading, when it exists, is a symptom of a larger problem: lack of product value. In other words, when there’s a lack of legitimate demand for product, companies incentivize participants to “load up” on items they might