Door to door sales. Sleazy?

[rcrvrp]

I hope I'm not stepping on toes with this question, I'm not trying to paint all sales people with a broad brush.
I have not seen a dtd vacuum sales guy for a long time, don't know if its even done anymore.
But my mother, now departed, was a widow for a long time with a big home 2 stories with long shag carpet from the 70s.
She had a central vac system she didn't like so she bought an Electrolux, went to town and got it. After a few years a Kirby salesman stops by and convinces her to spend a few thousand on a Kirby. This is in the early 90s.
He had her convinced it was so much better than the Electrolux. She was in her 70s at the time and although not senile she was a very gullible old lady.
I was not happy but it was her money and she could afford it.
About 5 years later an Electrolux guy comes by and $2600 later she has a new vacuum. This time I saw it the next day and took it back for a refund.
A few years later its another one. I didn't find out about that one for a month, too late to return. Every time it was a "free" carpet shampoo or some other gimmick to get in the door and then high pressure from there on.
When I have more time I'll tell you about interviewing for a sales job in college and it was a commission job selling Rainbows. No, I didn't start selling them.
So my question is were these high pressure vac sales techniques taught by the manufacturer to their distributers? Or for some reason did the vac business just devolve into questionable ethics?

 

[centralsweeper63]

I have heard bad story's about door to door salesmen.... but this is something different. Thousands and thousands of dollars were, in my opinion SWINDLED out of her. Just horrible, how do these people sleep at night. The good door to door salesmen are wonderful, like the one's on here. But the bad ones are something else entirely.

 

[rcrvrp]

I have heard bad story's about door to door salesmen.... but this is something different. Thousands and thousands of dollars were, in my opinion SWINDLED out of her. Just horrible, how do these people sleep at night. The good door to door salesmen are wonderful, like the one's on here. But the bad ones are something else entirely.

When I cleaned out her house the Kirby was still there and I didn't want it. [Big heavy hunk of metal, what elderly lady would be able to take that up a stairway?] So I put it on Marketplace for $100 including even a shampoo attachment. Friendly guy came and asked about it, I told him didnt know much except by the looks of it it wasn't used much and she paid over $2000 for it and I thought she got screwed because she was old and vulnerable.
He looked at it closely and mentioned some technical detail about the model, something the average person wouldn't know about, I didn't.
I asked how he knew about that.
He said, "I used to sell these years ago, might have sold this one."
He offered $50, I held at $100, he took it.
What he didn't know is I would have taken $25 before he told me he used to sell them! I got a tiny bit of revenge for my mother.

 

[centralsweeper63]

HA, good one.

 

[vacerator]

I don't know if still today, but several years back I let a Rainbow salesman in and do a demo. He put the upholstery tool on and vacuumed my carpet and the water was a bit grey. He gifted me the carving knife set even though I declined a purchase. Those things had tangs that were wider than the wood and very uncomfortable to use at all.

 

[madman]

How the hell else are they supposed to make sales? They're basically the physical embodiment of telemarketers. I don't agree with the practice, but the "nice" salesmen probably don't make much money.

 

[centralsweeper63]

I have absolutely no clue.

 

[hygiene903]

I sold Electro-Hygienes in 1974 and again in 1976. I was one of the "good" or "nice" salesmen that Centralsweeper and Madman mentioned. We did have discounts for trade-ins and other discounts, and although we weren't as aggressive as some salesmen, we were instructed to offer any discounts necessary to make the sale. Suggested retail was $289.95 for uprights and $279.95 for tanks. If I remember right, commission was $72.50 (25%) on each unit sold at suggested retail. Unfortunately, each reduction in the price meant a reduction in commission, and after we dropped below a certain point (I think it was $200 for either model), we made no commission at all but did get credit for the sale.
Theoretically, the possibility was there to make $1,450 a week before taxes, based on selling 4 units a day at suggested retail, which would have been really good money back then. However, the reality was that I seldom had 4 leads each day, I didn't sell each one I demoed, and of the ones I did sell, I didn't always sell them at suggested retail. On top of that, you didn't get all of your commission on payday--Half of your commission for each machine sold went into your reserve account, which was like insurance against bad accounts. If any of your customers defaulted on their account, you lost the reserve money for that sale. As a result of the variables, my highest paycheck from that job was $100. I enjoyed what I did and the people I met were interesting, but it didn't take long to realize this would not be a career that I could make a living off of.
Jeff

 

[centralsweeper63]

I suppose they got new employees every few months so they never ran out of employees. Simply because if someone quit they were just replaced.