Explore the unique challenges facing direct selling shopping platforms and the trends toward global reach, field enablement, and AI-driven growth.
By Rodger Smith, Guest Contributor
The direct selling industry has come a long way, from person-to-person selling (Avon) and home parties (Tupperware) to a focus on compensation, recruiting, and early adoption of web in the mid-90s. It has always adapted and evolved.
But with technology and e-commerce, the direct selling industry has sometimes lagged. Many
companies are stuck with (sometimes by choice, sometimes held hostage by internal teams vying for control) outdated online experiences.
To thrive in direct selling now, companies need modern shopping solutions that compete with established online brands—solutions that address and support the specific needs of authentic person-to-person relationships, ultimately empowering them to focus on their products and people.
The Evolution of Direct Selling
The direct selling channel’s journey from personal selling to purpose-built e-commerce platforms has been challenging. This has highlighted the need to adapt to changing consumer behavior and technology.
Initially, success was based on individual interactions and in-home demos. The multilevel-marketing (MLM) model further shaped the industry. The internet arrived and another evolution was needed. Early big players pioneered online engagement but struggled to find ways to keep pace with technology. Today’s modern, efficient, and scalable shopping experiences are critical. Unfortunately, solutions that work for a typical online brand don’t necessarily work for the direct selling or MLM channel.
Another challenge faced by direct sales is that while technological innovation is crucial to scale and remain competitive, it can’t come at the cost of diluting focus from the most crucial elements of the business model: delivering great experiences and great products to people.
Companies need to strategically integrate modern commerce and other technologies to enhance, rather than distract from, their people and products. This is easier said than done.
Unique Needs, Complex Solutions
For online commerce, the direct selling industry has unique needs that generic e-commerce platforms (even global shopping leaders) can’t meet. These needs can be categorized into four key areas:
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Global: Many direct selling companies operate in multiple markets and require solutions that can handle multi-market operations, localized payments to increase conversion rates, and cross-border logistics, compliance, payments, and taxes.
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Field: Companies must balance the complex nuances of enrollment processes with elegant sharing/commerce, manage millions of sellers, and ensure proper attribution and genealogy. These require robust and specialized
systems.
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Connected: Seamless integration with other systems like logistics, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), data visualization and back-office operations are key.
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Control: Companies need to maintain global brand integrity and customer experience while meeting each market’s local governance requirements.
Key Trends and Solutions
How can we solve these complexities? There are interesting trends shaping how direct selling shopping platforms are developing. These aren’t just any trends—they’re solutions that directly tackle the unique challenges this industry faces daily.
Global Flexibility and Deep Localization: Now, we’re way beyond just offering a website in different languages, right? The real trend we’re seeing is platforms that offer what I call profound localization:
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Dynamic Content Adaptation: The platform adjusts content, images and product offerings based on the customer’s location. For example, it automatically highlights flavors that are popular in a region or adjusts marketing messages to align with local cultural norms.
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Hyper-localized Pricing and Promotions: Sophisticated pricing engines now handle currency conversions, regional taxes, and market-specific promotional campaigns automatically. This ensures you’re meeting compliance everywhere and that your pricing makes sense for local purchasing power.
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Integrated Local Payment Gateways and Logistics: Seamless connection with regional payment providers and local shipping networks reduces friction for international customers. Studies show that websites offering local payment options can see an increase in conversion rates of up to 30% (Source: Baymard Institute).
Open API Connectivity and Extensibility: The limitations of closed, proprietary systems are becoming clear. The big trend is toward open APIs (application programming interfaces).
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Seamless Third-Party Integrations: Effortlessly connect with best-of-breed solutions for CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot, ERP systems like NetSuite or SAP, marketing automation tools, and logistics providers.
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Customization and Feature Expansion: “Future-proof” your business and build custom functionalities and integrations specific to your business models and evolving needs, without being locked in to what a platform natively offers.
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Data Portability and Interoperability: This enables easy data flow between systems for a holistic business view. Data wants to be free, and this approach overcomes data silos and enhances operational efficiency.
Templated, Highly Modifiable, and Low-Code/No-Code Solutions: Speed and agility are crucial. Modern platforms offer:
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Pre-designed, Conversion-Optimized Templates: These provide a foundation for appealing and user-friendly storefronts refined for direct sales workflows. Using a templated solution can increase speed to market by an estimated 40%-50% compared to fully custom development.
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Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Interfaces: These empower non-technical users to customize website layouts, content and branding. Thus simplifying content management and supporting that brand consistency you need without a reliance on expensive professional services.
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Component-Based Architectures: Modular building blocks can be easily added, removed and rearranged to create unique online experiences tailored to specific campaigns or distributor needs.
Real-time Insights with Granular Attribution and Embedded AI: Using data and artificial intelligence becomes powerful:
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Precise Distributor Attribution: Accurately track sales, recruitment, and customer interactions back to the originating distributor, ensuring fair compensation and providing clear visibility into individual and team performance.
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AI-Powered Recommendations and Personalization: Machine learning analyzes behavior to deliver personalized product recommendations and targeted promotions. E-commerce platforms using personalization see an average revenue increase of 10%-15% (Source: McKinsey).
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Predictive Analytics for Business Growth: AI finds emerging trends, forecasts sales patterns, and gives actionable insights to corporate and field leaders. This enables proactive decision-making and strategic growth initiatives, moving you from a place of reactivity to predictive operations.
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AI-Driven Coaching and Support for Distributors: Integrate AI-powered tools within distributor portals and mobile apps for personalized guidance on business-building activities, product knowledge, and customer engagement strategies. Prompt a distributor and nudge them with a personalized message to act.
An Industry Solution to Challenges
There are real solutions to the problems that direct sellers face daily. These create real advantages as you build out your direct selling shopping platforms, manage multi-market operations, localize content, integrate systems, and improve field performance. A perfect direct selling e-commerce solution should address these challenges by:
- Running multi-market operations that scale.
- Simplifying control over market-by-market content.
- Using a fully integrated and connected ecosystem via open APIs.
- Having fast, easy-to-support replicable sites through templated control.
- Giving exact field credit and payouts.
- Utilizing AI insights and coaching to drive growth.
To truly compete in today’s world, a connected, efficient ecosystem is essential—not just for corporate success but to empower distributors with an effortless, authentic experience.
Looking Ahead
The future of direct selling shopping platforms is about providing complete integrated solutions that empower companies and their distributors. It’s more important than ever in today’s fast-paced, information-overloaded world to make it easy for distributors to connect with customers and teams in the spare moments they have.
Rodger Smith is head of business development at Exigo
