Short Line to the Customer
Vorwerk’s core business is the worldwide direct selling of high-quality products. High quality is the defining characteristic of Vorwerk – both in the advice offered to customers and in the products manufactured.
It all started with a shelf warmer. When Vorwerk invented the Kobold hand-held vacuum cleaner in 1929, it was a technical sensation. A small, yet powerful device offering modern vacuum cleaning technology in a handy form. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a problem because customers who saw the Kobold on display in stores could not imagine that anything so small could be so efficient. Luckily, Werner Mittelsten Scheid returned from a visit to the United States with a smart business idea: direct sales. Thanks to this new system of selling, the Kobold was soon a roaring success in Germany – so much so, in fact, that by 1936, Vorwerk was ready to set up its first international subsidiary: Vorwerk Folletto in Italy.
Today, the turnover generated outside Germany was 67 percent, in direct sales it was even as much as 83 percent.
Direct selling at Vorwerk takes different forms around the world, however, depending on the product group, and local and cultural differences. The benefits of direct sales are clear: Customers can experience at first hand the quality and efficiency of the products during an individual demonstration within their own four walls. For the people on our sales teams, on the other hand, direct selling offers an attractive opportunity to earn an income while working in extremely flexible conditions and a dynamic market environment.
