The Tupperware Effect

Forbes:

According to Tupperware CEO Rick Goings, a dozen years of recruiting, educating and empowering women around the world to start businesses selling Tupperware has translated into earnings success. The company is leveraging a growing female sales force of 2.6 million women in regions like China, India, Indonesia, the CIS, Latin America and South Africa. It is simultaneously benefiting from the growing ranks of working women in developed nations who are buying its products to help their busy, on-the-go lifestyles.

Forbes: What do you think is driving Tupperware’s recent success?

Goings: We’ve spent a lot of time recreating this company. We have relevant products, an exciting way of selling our products and, especially, we are leveraging this global desire of more and more young women to become entrepreneurs.

How are you targeting women around the world?

We do it with our product line. So much growth is coming from emerging markets. Firstly, consider that China, India and Indonesia are just under half of the world’s population. It’s where the people are. The U.S., for example, is only 5% of the population. As these countries have become more affluent there has been a growth of the middle class. Buying a high-quality product like Tupperware says to her peers, I’m not poor any more.

In many of the emerging markets of the world, there are very limited earning opportunities for women. There either are no opportunities for her or she’s under-employed. We provide her an opportunity to start her own business.

Logo from Tupperware