Direct Selling is a business model used to market products or services directly to consumers. The direct selling industry offers a variety of goods and services, including foods/food supple­ments, cosmetics, cookware and much more. These products or services are commonly marketed by independent contractors (often referred to as “distri­butors”, “consul­tants” or “repre­sen­ta­tives”) on a person-to-person basis to the end consumer. Typically, these independent contractors use social media and/or their own or a company-repli­cated website to sell or promote products and services.

Direct selling encom­passes a variety of distri­bution methods, including multi-level marketing (also referred to as “MLM” or “network marketing”). In general, multi-level marketing involves a compen­sation structure according to which independent contractors are not only compen­sated for their own product sales, but also for the sales generated by their downline (which are other salespeople whom they recruit into the business, including the recruits’ recruits).