Ding-dong Avon Calling!

IT HAS been helping the nation’s ladies look lovely for 50 years.

Much to the delight of suburban housewives up and down the country, Avon UK was first established in 1959 employing just 109 Avon ladies to sell beauty products door-to-door.

But today the cosmetics giant boasts a 160,000-strong army of their now iconic saleswomen (and even a few men) armed with treats as tantalising as Bond Girl perfume and one-handed lipstick.

Their famous fifties’ “Ding-dong, Avon calling!” catchphrase may still be fondly repeated decades on but this is one company that is not stuck in the past.

In fact Avon is more popular than ever today, selling more lipstick, nail polish, eye make-up, fragrance and skincare than any other brand in the UK.

Reasonably priced and ever-reliable, Avon’s enduring appeal must have a lot to do with their determination to move with the times.

Their current cover girl is American A-lister Reese Witherspoon (who has also been given the lofty title of “global ambassador”) and one in three women in the UK is an Avon customer.

What has never changed, however, is the opportunity Avon offers women to fit earning money around their busy lifestyles and family commitments.

“They have kept so up-to-date,” exclaims Tracy Cudlipp, a Hampshire-based Avon lady for the last eight years.

“It’s the same brand but they continually re-market it and fit it into the times. People absolutely love Avon and have so much affection for it.”

Forget Reese, Tracy is as great an ambassador for the Avon brand as you’re likely to find.

“With Avon you don’t have to pay for parking or travelling and you don’t have to hunt round the shops,” she says. “You can shop in your pyjamas on your bed. It’s cheap, easy and delivered to your door.”

Brimming with genuine enthusiasm, she is an expert on all things Avon and is proud to be the number one Avon “sales representative” (as the company now likes to call them) in her area for the last two years running.

As a mum of two young children, Tracy, who lives in New Milton, finds life as an Avon lady suits her down to the ground.

The 34-year-old can work the hours she chooses and build her business as big as she wants, but still be around to pick her kids up from school every day.

Ambitious and driven, Tracy’s business has grown and grown.

“I started off covering just one road in New Milton. Now I have about 300 customers spreading from as far as Highcliffe and Hordle. I have really worked at it. It doesn’t come easy and you get out what you put in.”

Making commission of roughly 25 per cent on her sales, Tracy estimates she makes somewhere in the region of £23,000 a year.

It may not be a fortune but it pays for Christmas, birthdays and her lovely new garden.

She knows the demand is out there to develop her business even further, but she feels she has got her work-life balance just about right at the moment.

Warm and friendly, the fact that Tracy is very much a “people person” has surely done wonders for her sales.

She even counts many of her clients as friends.

“My motto is to keep my customers happy, they keep me in business,” she says.

As well as cosmetics and toiletries, these days Avon sells lines as diverse as lingerie, jewellery and fashion accessories.

“You don’t need to hard sell anything,” says Tracy. “The quality and the prices are so good that people are dying to buy the stuff.”

While many businesses are struggling in these tough times, the credit crunch is actually bringing a lot of new customers to Avon.

“Some people are buying less but more people are buying. There are people who never bought Avon before, who are switching from a more expensive brand and finding that Avon is even better.”

While Avon representatives are typically female, Avon Men do exist. In fact, Tracy knows of one who works in Hythe who is threatening to steal her crown as number one seller.

And she has male customers too.

“There’s one gentleman who buys for his kids and there’s another that gets shaving gel and deodorant. I have heard from a fellow rep about a man who only ever buys women’s underwear and he appears to be single! He might be buying for his mother I suppose, but I’m not convinced!”

AVON FACTS

■ The company was originally established in the US in 1886.

■ Globally there are more than a billion Avon customers in over 100 countries.

■ Four Avon lipsticks and two mascaras are sold every second around the world.

■ Six million women in the UK see an Avon brochure every three weeks.

■ 10,000 representative orders are processed daily at Avon Cosmetics UK’s distribution centre.

■ In 1989, Avon became the first major cosmetics manufacturer to permanently stop using animals in the safety testing of its products.

■ Avon scientists create and evaluate nearly 1,000 cosmetic, fragrance and toiletry products every year.