Direct Sales are sales made by marketing and selling of products directly to the consumer, not through a store. Sales occur at home, work or other non-store location. This system often eliminates several of the middlemen involved in product distribution, such as the regional distribution center and wholesaler. Instead, products go from manufacturer to the direct sales company, to the distributor or rep, and to the consumer.
Direct Marketing is a form of advertising where organizations communicate directly to prospective customers through telemarketing, email marketing, websites, online adverts, direct mail, fliers and catalog distribution, promotional letters and targeted television, as well as newspaper and magazine advertisements.
The consumer protection by the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act is not sufficient in the particular case of direct sales and direct marketing business, where an independent distributor or a direct sale agent offers the direct distribution of goods and services to the consumers with a strategy for introducing goods to stimulate the consumers’ demand.
Upon consumer’s decision to purchase, a contract of sale will establish obligations which might have negative consequences for the consumer.
When the selling is done through the media, the consumers neither touch nor have a clear look at the goods. As a consequence, the consumer may receive goods, which are of different quality than in the advertisement. And after the return of goods, the consumer might receive nothing back, or a refund might be very slow.
The issuance of the Direct Selling and Direct Marketing Act is for the purpose of taking legal measures for controlling the direct selling and direct marketing business and for the protection of the consumers.
The Office of the Consumer Protection Board is an agency which has duties to protect consumer rights, promoting fairness and against being exploited as a result of buying goods and services from business entities, together with promoting consumer awareness in buying goods and services and supporting and strengthening coordination among consumer groups and networks.
If an independent distributor of any direct sale company has sold a certain amount of goods and he or she demands for monetary consideration, discount, commission, or the return of goods according to the rights indicated in the contract, the company must therefore accept the goods and pay back money with the value of the returned goods and monetary considerations as indicated in the contract.
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