Company Startup

The first thing you need is a product. It needs to be aligned with the relational and experiential selling strengths of the direct selling channel.

Pricing is vitally important. You must be sure that there is sufficient margin to recover all costs and leave you with a profit; your product needs to be competitively priced against other products. You need to carefully calculate the cost of running your business, including:

• • Product cost
  • Benefits payable to salespeople
  • Distribution costs
  • Promotional costs
  • Overheads

You must also have a dependable product supply to allow timely fulfilment of orders.

You must develop a compensation or reward plan for your salesforce detailing the benefits to be paid for sales performance. Single level, multi-level and binary plans are common in the Australian market. For more information, see the FAQs page. The DSA can provide details of professional consultants to help design your plan.

You must develop a compensation or reward plan for your salesforce detailing the benefits to be paid for sales performance. There are three main types of Plans: single level, multi-level and binary. For more information, see the FAQs page. The DSA can provide details of professional consultants who can help design your plan.

You must decide how you want your business to operate: as a party plan, network marketing, door-to-door, or combination model. The method of operation will be largely determined by the nature of the product and whether it requires demonstration.

Starting a DSO will require a significant capital investment. Care should be taken to ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to cover start-up costs and an initial trading period.

Start-up costs will include, but may not be limited to:

• Product development
• Inventory
• Stationery and Literature, including:
  • Staff Agreement
  • Catalogue
  • Price Lists
  • Customer Order Form
  • Staff Order Form
  • Compensation Plan
  • Policies and Procedures Manual
  • Host Reward Leaflet
  • Party Invitations
  • Host Envelope
• Website Development and Hosting
• Staffing and Labour Costs
• Product Registrations and Licence Fees
• Taxation issues are also important when considering the establishment of a DSO and should be discussed with a professional advisor.

For companies launching a direct selling business in Australia, Direct Selling Australia offers a unique service to assist new entrants to the Australian direct selling market to access relevant information and support during your critical set-up phase.

Our Market Entrants service provides access to information about local market conditions, regulatory compliance requirements and much more. 

To learn more or apply, head to the Market Entrants page.