Starting with the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Direct Selling Business is as old as the history of mankind. Let’s, however, concentrate on the more recent past, i. e. the years from 1950 onward:

Hawkers were going from door to door, offering their goods (door-to-door business!) There were the first in-home parties in Germany, being more and more copied to then become a boom when in 1962 “Tupperware” opened its German subsidiary.

Amway, founded 1959 in the US, started its German operations in 1975. Amway had developed a variation on Direct Selling, the so-called “Multi Level Marketing” or MLM.

Today this type of the Direct Selling Business is known as “Network Marketing” or “Referral Marketing”.

Starting with the 80s, German Direct Selling companies like LR and PM came into the market, followed by further American and European enterprises, opening their branch offices/subsidiaries in Germany. 

The flagship of the German Direct Selling companies was and still is, of course, Vorwerk with its various product groups.