Katie Jones sells Avon. Believe it or not, she does so without wearing a skirt suit, without dinging strangers’ doorbells, and without ever uttering the words “Avon calling.”
Jones, 20, studies English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She holds a part-time data entry job, but relies on her Avon income to finance her books and cover her car payment. On a recent Sunday afternoon she logged onto her Facebook account, not to check in on friends’ status updates, but to track her Avon orders.
Your mother wouldn’t recognize this Avon lady, or representative as she’s now referred to, if she was staring directly at her Avon-decorated face.
“It’s not about the nice older lady with the pillbox hat anymore,” Jones says. “The face of Avon is changing. You can see it, not just with who sells Avon, but with the product lines, too.”
Sure, the brand that celebrates its 125th anniversary this year still sells four lipsticks a second, but its offerings have extended far beyond just beauty products. Skin care, hair care, accessories, fashion, intimates, jewelry, kids’ clothes and toys, and bakeware can all be purchased from an Avon catalog.
Logo from Avon