Door-to-door selling was a key factor behind the particularly rapid interwar diffusion of vacuum cleaners among British households, relative to other "high-ticket" labor-saving appliances. Yet the door-to-door system incurred both high distribution costs and considerable controversy-owing to widespread sharp practice. Employers enticed salesmen through grossly inflated claims regarding earnings, which were in fact insufficient for most salesmen to make an acceptable living. This led many salesmen to engage in their own sharp practices-which eventually brought this form of marketing into disrepute.
The aftermath of the First World War witnessed the rise of a new retail phenomenon on the streets of Britain, the "specialty" door-todoor salesman, hawking expensive durable (and generally branded) consumer goods, such as water softeners, encyclopedias, or-most commonly -vacuum cleaners. This was part of an international phenomenon, representing a new type of direct marketing that was to become increasingly important over subsequent decades.1
While traveling salesmen were a traditional feature of British distribution, they had hitherto generally fallen into one of three well-defined categories. In the first group were commercial travelers, who sold to trade customers, enjoyed relatively high occupational status and incomes, and sought to develop long-term business relationships with purchasers.2 The second category was made up of door-to-door agents of life-insurance companies and friendly societies. These dealt in policies involving individually small, and easily terminable, payments- thus similarly relying on building long-term relationships.3 The third classpeddlers, "scotch drapers," and tallymen- relied much more heavily on one-off sales, but they also dealt in items typically of relatively low value.4
Vacuum-cleaner salesmen and their counterparts were distinguished by the one-off or "transactional" sale of expensive durable goods, typically involving sums equivalent to several weeks' wages for the purchaser. Their sales strategy was based on a single successful sale to each "prospect," rather than on building a longer-term relationship. The nearest precedent had been door-to-door sales of Singer sewing machines, beginning in the 1860s. However, the Singer enterprise had involved a continuing relationship between salesman and household- as the salesman was also responsible for collecting hire-purchase (HP) payments (on which he obtained a further commission)- thus tempering opportunism during the initial sales pitch.5 Conversely, this new brand of salesman had no further contact with his customers, relying on one single "big hit" with each "prospect."
Door-to-door sales proved crucial to the particularly rapid diffusion of vacuum cleaners in Britain, relative to other "high ticket" labor-saving appliances. There were an estimated 2.3 million vacuum cleaners in domestic use in 1939 in around 30 percent of homes wired for electricity. This compares with diffusion rates to wired homes of only 3.6 percent for electric clothes "wash boilers," 6.3 percent for electric water heaters, 2.3 percent for electric refrigerators, and 16.8 percent for electric cookers (none of which were suitable for household demonstrations by a salesman traveling on foot).6 Similarly, estimated 1938 consumers' expenditure on vacuums, from �5 million to �5.5 million, almost equaled the �5 million to �6 million spent on all other electric household appliances (excluding radios, radiograms, and lamps).7
There has been barely any research on the early growth of this form of distribution in Britain, and studies of its welfare impact have tended to focus on the hazards of the "hard sell" of expensive items under inflexible contracts from the perspective of the purchaser.8 However, as this article demonstrates, the armies of door-to-door salesmen also received rough treatment from the system: typical "careers" involved around two and a half months on very low incomes before being either fired or forced by poverty and disillusionment to quit. Opportunistic behavior by employers enticed salesmen through grossly inflated claims regarding earnings, while likely commissions were so low that only a small minority of salesmen could earn an acceptable living. Many salesmen eventually reacted by engaging in their own sharp practices, both through desperation and, often, in a conscious attempt to turn the tables on their employers.
After briefly outlining the development of the vacuum-cleaner market and the sales strategies adopted by major manufacturers, I will examine the recruitment, training, management, and daily operations of salesmen, primarily drawing on ten autobiographical testimonies (summarized in Appendix 1) by nine vacuum-cleaner salesmen and one female canvasser. I will also review the development of opportunistic practices by salesmen, their reputational impact on the sector, and the failure of sales managers to reconcile their twin objectives of maximizing sales and controlling damaging behavior.
The Vacuum-Cleaner Market
The British fairground engineer Hubert Cecil Booth is generally credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner in 1901-as a horse-drawn mechanical novelty-though a variety of earlier patents had been filed from around 1869.9 James Murray Spangler, an asthmatic American school cleaner, devised a crude portable electric vacuum in 1907. He sold the idea to his relative, W. H. "Boss" Hoover, a leather-goods manufacturer in North Canton, Ohio, who started manufacturing cleaners in 1908.10 During the First World War, Hoover expanded the North Canton plant into a mass-production factory equipped with a moving assembly line.11 After the war, he also transformed the Canadian assembly operation (established in 1911) into a factory in order to gain superior access to Britain and its empire.
Hoover rapidly established itself as the U.K. market leader; annual sales rose from 2,252 cleaners in 1919 to 211,814 in 1938 (valued at �2,302,849).12 It originally relied on Canadian imports, but then opened a small U.K. factory for assembling Canadian parts. A move to full U.K. manufacture was precipitated by Britain's departure from the gold standard in 1931, which increased its import costs by at least 15 percent.13 The new factory at Perivale, in west London, was run by the British managers who had hitherto developed their U.K. sales subsidiary. Fronted by offices that constitute one of the finest surviving British examples of art-deco architecture, it grew to employ 1,733 people by 1938.14
Hoover championed the upright loose-bag cleaner.15 Conversely, its main rival in the British market, Swedish-based Electrolux, was the U.K. market leader in cylinder vacuum cleaners. Electrolux owes its origins to Axel Wenner-Gren, who produced his first cleaner, the Lux 1, in Sweden in 1913.16 In 1927 Electrolux (which was now also manufacturing refrigerators) opened a British factory in Luton, as part of a multinational production strategy that also involved new factories in Germany and France.
Vigorous nonprice competition included attacks on the characteristics of rival brands (but without specific mention of brand names, to avoid litigation). For example, Electrolux claimed that cleaners with a beating action (i.e., Hoovers) damaged carpets, while its own cylinder cleaners relied on powerful suction action that drew out embedded dust without damage.17 This claim (which appears to have been without substance) had plagued Hoover since shortly after its initial launch in the United States, promulgated by competitors who generally produced purely suction cleaners. Hoover countered this by promoting its cleaners' beating-sweeping action with the famous slogan, "It Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans." This had a strong appeal to housewives, since beating carpets to remove hidden dirt was part of the annual spring-cleaning ritual.18
Nonprice competition (which also included extensive advertising and aggressive salesmanship) allowed major manufacturers to avoid price competition, while list prices were rigidly enforced through resale price maintenance.19 Despite the development of lower-priced cleaners by less well-known firms whose cheapest models were priced at �5 10s to �5 15s in 1931 and �3 to �4 in 1938 (one firm, Brown Brothers Ltd., marketed two models at below �3), prices for leading brands showed remarkable stability. A comparison of models listed both in 1933 and 1938 shows that while some prices were lower, a large proportion had not changed at all.20 Hoover's prices were stable throughout the interwar period (indicating a significant increase in real terms); a high-powered Hoover sold at around �20 from the early 1920s onward.21 However, Hoover did move some way toward countering competition from cheaper models, launching the lower-powered "Junior" in 1935, priced at �10 158 (plus �2 2s 6d for dusting tools).22
Table 1 shows official and trade estimates for national production, trade, sales, and ex-works value (the value of the good on leaving the factory, that is, minus distribution and advertising costs) per cleaner. The large difference in the two production estimates for 1930 is probably due to the inclusion in the 1931 trade estimate of cleaners, such as Hoovers, which were then manufactured overseas but assembled in Britain (the trade estimate for production being roughly equal to the official estimate for sales). Despite vigorous growth until the mid-1930s, sales appear to have stagnated during the second half of the decade. According to a trade estimate, just prior to the Second World War sales were about 400,000 per year, while the number in use had reached 2.3 million.23
A review of contemporary housekeeping manuals reveals a strong consensus that the vacuum constituted a valuable labor-saving device and was substantially more efficient than cheaper alternatives.24 Yet households do not appear to have accorded them any great priority in spending decisions. In 1938, the social-research organization Mass Observation asked two hundred volunteer observers (predominantly lower-middle class, but with a significant proportion of upper-workingclass people) about the main drawbacks in their everyday life.25 Eighteen percent of men and 31 percent of women mentioned lack of electric appliances (though vacuum cleaners were only mentioned by 6 percent of women and 4 percent of men). Yet, in response to the question, "What would you do with an extra �100 a year?" electric equipment (excluding radios and gramophones) was given top priority by only 3 percent of both men and women.26
Electric-supply companies had similarly identified "consumer inertia" (a combination of ignorance and innate conservatism regarding new technology) as a critical barrier to the diffusion of appliances.27 Yet, from the consumer's perspective, there were strong practical reasons for according them low priority. Vacuum cleaners and other laborsaving appliances brought much less social prestige than investment in highly visible display items, such as new furniture (which was prioritized by more than twice the number of households that mentioned electric goods); a larger house (more space also received higher priority in the survey); or a radio, gramophone, or new car (all of which were ranked above electric appliances). Manual carpet sweepers, which could be bought for as little as 10 to 20 shillings during the 1930s, provided a much cheaper (though markedly less efficient) alternative.28 Moreover, vacuums were also easily substitutable by a charwoman (increased domestic help receiving the same priority as electric goods), whose employment probably also conferred more social prestige.29
Nor were the cost advantages over domestic help at all clear cut. A 1935 survey of fifteen women found that they spent an average of 15.50 hours per week on domestic cleaning (including both regular cleaning and more intensive work during the annual spring clean).30 Monthly payments on a �20 cleaner would be around �1, while it would also incur power costs (claimed by Hoover in 1936 to be around a penny per hour).31 Total monthly costs would thus be sufficient to employ a charwoman (paid around iod per hour) for six hours per week to do the heavier cleaning.32 Charwomen were also much more flexible in their range of household tasks and-despite the sharp decline in the employment of indoor servants-it was common for lower-middle-class households to employ part-time help.33 After the two years or so of the HP agreement had elapsed, the vacuum would become a much cheaper option (incurring only power costs and servicing charges of six shillings per year, exclusive of parts).34 Yet, until then, its HP costs constituted a substantial and inflexible financial commitment, whereas the charwoman's employment could be terminated if the need arose.
Door-to-Door Sales
The evidence thus far suggests that the vacuum cleaner had not reached the "consumer demand" stage of diffusion, making door-todoor selling particularly attractive.35 Economist Philip Nelson famously divided products into "search goods," such as clothing, which he defined as competing products that can be assessed with a fair degree of accuracy by inspection during the shopping process, and "experience goods." The latter have a value that can only be accurately assessed through postpurchase experience, that is, through their use over time, on account of difficulties in assessing characteristics via inspection, such as performance in use and durability.36 Yet, as most sales were to first-time purchasers, customers generally had little or no direct accumulated experience and had to rely on indirect experience, such as the advice of friends or information from advertisements.
As Nelson noted, actions that limit prepurchase information gathering by consumers will necessarily concentrate sales and enhance producers' market power.37 Salesmen could both preempt the informationgathering process that might normally precede purchase (by approaching prospects before they had consciously considered acquiring a cleaner) and substitute their own assertions regarding the high performance and superior attributes of the product. As a textbook on salesmanship noted, "Generally speaking, direct selling is most necessary where sales resistance to a product is high. Where the consumer is asked to pay a large sum of money for a speciality, which will bring him no visible monetary return."38
Door-to-door sales of cleaners were pioneered in Britain by the main overseas-based producers: Hoover, Electrolux, and Thor (manufactured by General Electric).39 Hoover's initial expansion in the United States had involved a marketing formula based on direct sales, installment payments, and collaborative arrangements with retailers. Under the "resale plan," Hoover salesmen nominally worked for a local retailer (despite being trained, supervised, and paid by Hoover).40 Hoover introduced this system to Britain by opening a small U.K. sales division in 1919, appointing Charles Colston as the managing director, and hiring a sales force numbering half-a-dozen people. This was to grow into what Hoover claimed, in 1939, was the largest salaried outside sales force in the United Kingdom.41 The department-store chain Selfridges became the company's first U.K. retail collaborator, organizing door-todoor sales on Hoover's behalf.42 A similar deal with Harrods rapidly followed. These department stores also helped to popularize the Hoover, hosting in-store demonstrations (in keeping with their broader policies of showcasing new consumer goods in order to attract customers to their stores).43 Collaborative arrangements with well-known retailers also offered other advantages. For example, Hoover made many arrangements with electric-supply companies, and housewives were often greeted by what appeared to be a representative of the local electricity board. Salesmen were also given lists of local electricity consumers by the supply companies.44
Arrangements with local retailers reduced Hoover's distribution costs (the distributor took responsibility for stocking and delivery) and passed on the management of HP contracts-which often proved problematic-to the retailer. For example, Manchester department store Kendal Milne & Co. was one of Hoover's largest retail collaborators, recording sales of �351,565 over the five and a half years preceding July 1938.45 Significant arrears of payment were attributed to customers regarded as higher credit risks than Kendal Milne's regular clientele.46 Of 12,000 accounts in operation in July 1938, 2,000 were in arrears of two months or more (including 622 for six to twelve months and 451 for over twelve months). Furthermore, as Table 2 shows, Kendal Milne's total costs of managing the HP contracts exceeded interest payments, reducing its net margin on Hoover business by some 0.7 percent.
Electrolux had been using door-to-door salesmen in Britain at least as early as 1924.47 By the beginning of 1931, it had some thirty U.K. sales branches, and, though little information is available on the size of its sales force, the testimonies summarized in Appendix 1 indicate that it was Hoover's main rival.48 The chief difference between its sales strategy and Hoover's was that Electrolux (in common with some other firms) used female canvassers to arrange household demonstrations, followed up by a visit from a male salesman.49 This gender segmentation both reflects the overwhelmingly masculine orientation of directsales work and the heavy physical labor involved in hauling a heavy cleaner, plus tools and case, around the streets.50
Conversely, most British manufacturers used conventional distribution channels.51 GEC (producers of Magnet cleaners, a leading British brand) appears to have avoided direct sales throughout the interwar period.52 Similarly, until the late 1930s, Vac-Trie adopted a policy of selling only via retailers and electricity-supply undertakings: no VacTrie salesman was allowed to make direct calls on the public.53 Yet the intensity of competition from firms using direct sales deterred many retailers from stocking vacuums, while some retailers even resorted to developing their own door-to-door businesses.54 By 1938, Vac-Trie had switched to direct sales, though (almost uniquely among cleaner firms) it offered a genuine salary (rather than a drawing account against commission earnings), as well as commissions.55
Another key feature of vacuum-cleaner marketing, via both doorto-door and conventional retailing, was heavy reliance on hire purchase (HP), which accounted for an estimated three-quarters of sales in 1938 and played a vital role in making cleaners widely affordable.56 Down payments varied from 10s to �1 (generally toward the higher end of this spectrum); monthly installments were set at a similar level and generally spread over one to three years.57
The Door-to-Door System
Door-to-door selling is a relatively high-cost means of distribution, which suits high-margin goods.58 Selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door involved similarly high markups, as recalled by Sir Basil Smallpeice (Hoover's chief accountant at Perivale):
The standard cleaner complete with accessory dusting tools cost us about �7 to import. . . . We sold it for �21, a mark-up of 200 percent. The cost of selling was �11, of which �8 covered door-to-door selling, distribution, and administration. The other �3 went to the retailer, who took the risk of the buyer defaulting. This left us with �3 profit, which was nearly half what the cleaner cost us- though it was only a modest 14 percent on turnover.59
These figures appear broadly typical for the sector. The British think tank Political and Economic Planning found that the average ex-works value of a British vacuum in the 1930s, around �8, corresponded to an average retail price of around �15 to �20.60 Similarly, Hoover's commission to retailers of 14 percent (according to both Smallpeice's calculations and Table 2) corroborates J. B. Jefferys' estimates that retailers selling vacuums on orders obtained through salesmen received a margin of from 12.5 percent to 20 percent (averaging near the lower end of this range).61 Smallpeice later received copies of the American company's cost sheets, showing that manufacturing costs were less than �4; thus their profit was also �3 per cleaner, in addition to the English subsidiary's �3. When the Perivale factory got into regular production, it was able to match American costs, earning the �3 manufacturing markup as well as the �3 distribution profit. Thus, as Smallpeice noted, "in essence the economics of the business . . . were [that] ... it cost �11 to market and �4 to make, and the company netted a �6 profit- a return of 150 percent on [manufacturing] cost."62
Although there were only around six to seven thousand British vacuum salesmen in 1938, a far higher number had entered the trade during the 1930s, probably well in excess of 100,000, owing to chronic labor turnover. High labor turnover was common in direct selling.63 Yet Hoover's British sales-force turnover was a staggering 500 percent: the firm's average salesman stayed for little more than two months, and 7,500 new salesmen were required each year to maintain a workforce of 1,500.64 This situation was fueled by low average earnings. Details given by Hoover to the chief industrial advisor's office in February 1932 provide an insight into the size, structure, and productivity of its sales force. Some 1,300 salesmen, 400 supervisory salesmen, 40 district sales managers, and 5 branch sales managers together sold 45,000 machines per year, with a retail value of �852,000.65 Even after discounting supervisory salesmen, only thirty-five cleaners were sold per person-well under one per week.
A Hoover salesman drew �2 weekly in advance of a �3 commission (a rate of 14 percent, equal to that received by the collaborative retailer) when he sold a cleaner. If he ran up a deficit of �8 his employment was terminated.66 This was an unusually low commission for door-to-door selling. Everett Smith estimated in 1926 that commission rates for U.S. salesmen varied from 25 percent to 40 percent of the retail price (or 30 percent to 50 percent if various bonuses and awards were added); while Victor Buell, in 1954, gave a range of 20 percent to 40 percent.67 Based on the 1931 turnover and sales-force data, a Hoover salesman's earnings would typically be only �2 to �3 a week (a sum corroborated by salesmen's testimonies), putting them in a wage bracket well below that of other "white-collar" workers and among the lower ranks of manual workers.
A factor compounding the problem of high labor turnover was strong seasonal variation in sales, as illustrated by Hoover's 1938 monthly sales data, shown in Figure 1. A strong peak is evident in March, the month of the traditional British spring cleaning, while the summer witnessed a big drop in demand, which then picked up in the autumnfollowed by a post-Christmas slump. Thus a salesman managing an average of one sale a week would struggle to avoid the �8 deficit that would lead to his being fired in January or July.
Salesmen employed by other vacuum companies appear to have had similarly low incomes, since there was no clear evidence that particular firms were regarded as offering markedly better earnings than their rivals. Hoover's competitors generally paid higher-percentage commissions (for cleaners that typically had a lower selling price) but did not enjoy Hoover's strong brand image. Furthermore, unlike Hoover, most did not pay any retainer. Even in the United States, where higher household incomes made vacuums more widely accessible, expected earnings were relatively low. For example, in 1932, Charles G. Groff, president of Electrolux's New York subsidiary, outlined a sales plan for a new local sales team. Taking into account differences in ability and experience, a successful team, in business for a month, would ideally comprise:
One man selling 20 or more [per month]
Four top men selling an average of 4 per week.
Eight medium men selling an average of 2 per week.
Nine below-average men selling 1 per week.
Three new men selling 1 each for the month.68
They would thus achieve total sales of around two hundred cleaners-a good result for the firm. Yet almost half the staff would sell one or fewer cleaners per week, and only 20 percent would earn what could be regarded as a reasonable white-collar income.
Recruitment, Training, and the Sales Process
Chronic labor turnover entailed a constant stream of new salesmen, who were mainly recruited through small ads in local newspapers. As a former vacuum salesman writing in the New Statesman noted: "In a London daily of the sober type readers may have noticed scores of attractively worded 'smalls' which offer a man of ambition, energy and unquestioned integrity (and preferably with a public school education) the prospect of an important executive post in some rapidly expanding sales organisation."69 For example, one January 1935 issue of the Times, Britain's leading broadsheet paper, contained ten such ads; a typical entry claimed, "Four figure incomes are being earned by men on our sales staff. We are prepared to engage and train men of personality and appearance without previous selling experience. . . ."70
Another, less common, route into the profession was via salesmanship courses. For example, Harold Marshall, a former quarry worker, enrolled with the Woolis Atwood Training College, responding to an ad in the Yorkshire Evening Post that began, "Would you like to earn �1,000 a year?" The course cost fifteen guineas, but the college promised to find him employment, which turned out to involve selling vacuums for a U.S. firm, on commission only.71
Many potential applicants were put off when they discovered the true nature of the job. In both Britain and the United States, selling door-to-door was regarded as a residual occupation for people who could not find other employment.72 However, the numbers willing to consider such work rose during periods of depression, and during the high unemployment era of the 1930s there was a significant stream of applicants. In common with many American direct-sales organizations, firms tended to apply only the most basic selection procedures, secure in the knowledge that reliance on commission would soon weed out the poorer salesmen.73 Smallpeice characterized Hoover's average recruit as "no salesman really; to him it was work, when jobs of any kind were hard to come by. He managed to sell half-a-dozen Hoovers to people he knew and then called it a day."74
Vacuum salesmen were perhaps the most socially diverse occupational group in interwar Britain; but they had in common a degree of economic desperation, sometimes born out of previous recklessness or misfortune. A former salesman writing in the New Statesman characterized door-to-door work as: "the last refuge of the man who is 'on his back'. . . the dregs of the employment exchanges, crooks and a lot of unhappy declass�s, ranging from gigolos to broken rubber-planters and 'unplaced' University men."75 Vacuum firms had a preference for welleducated salesmen, and, despite the job's poor pay and dubious reputation, they appear to have drawn a significant proportion of salesmen from people with a public-school and/or university background. The biographical data presented in the Appendix indicate that a substantial proportion of salesmen were from middle-class backgrounds (though their representation is probably overstated, as they were more likely to have left written testimonies). The existence of a significant stratum of unsuccessful middle-class men who gravitated toward sales work is corroborated by contemporary accounts. As former Hoover and Electrolux salesman Julian MacLaren-Ross noted:
There were a lot of young men in the world like me. You see 'em in the vacuum-cleaner schools, selling secondhand cars, Great Portland Street, silk stockings from door to door. Young man, public school education, can drive car, go anywhere, do anything. Live on hope. Something'll turn up. Luck's bound to change.76
The attraction of unsuccessful middle-class men to this form of employment also reflected its ambiguous social status. Commercial travelers, while being among the lowest ranks of the middle class, were nevertheless clearly members of that class in terms of both income and status.77 Thus, salesmanship as a generic occupation was more respectable for penniless public-school men than better-paid manual work. Yet door-to-door sales rapidly developed much more negative connotations. As an Electrolux salesman noted in his Mass Observation diary report, following a visit to see his mother, "She was proud of me (God only knows why)[.] 'Yes, Len is a salesman in London,' she doesn't know I sell vacuum cleaners door to door."78
Recruits were typically sent to the firm's "school," where they received a week's training. Maclaren-Ross recalled that the first day of classes with Hoover covered the "Three Types of Dirt." On the second day, he continued, the students were introduced to "The Science of Positive Agitation, which may be summed up by our slogan It Beats as It Sweeps as It Cleans, and which is the only satisfactory method for combating all three types of dirt. . . . "79 They were subsequently taught how to elegantly assemble the machine, conduct a demonstration, and make a sale. Students typically took turns being the salesman and the prospect. Sam Tobin, who started work with Hoover in 1938, recalled that they were given a script to learn, which they followed almost to the letter.80 A "canned" (rehearsed) sales pitch was also used by Hoover's American parent, which issued to salesmen a forty-seven-page booklet -largely consisting of step-by-step sales dialogue.81 On graduation, a representative from the head office would typically visit to inspire confidence, "encourage everybody to be 'hundred percenters' (everything must be 100 percent) and extend prospects of an almost aggressive profusion of badges, ties, china tea-sets, trips to Ostend and cups as an added inducement to 'big sales.' "82 They might then receive their first retainer or advance and be sent into the field.
Selling involved long days of repetitive and laborious work. A common ploy was to offer to leave the machine in the house "for a few days," so that the housewife might come to regard it as indispensable by the time the salesman returned. This entailed trekking back to the branch office for a second machine, carrying the heavy display case onto the street, and then repeating the process. Then, if a housewife had been won over, a repeat call had to be made in the evening, to try to talk the husband into agreeing to the purchase.83 Yet the most difficult task was getting through the door. Houses with servants proved particularly challenging. Calling at the tradesman's entrance was futile, as the maid's standard response was that she had no authority to grant an interview with the madam of the house. Meanwhile calls at the front door were usually ignored. Sam Tobin solved this problem (on the advice of a veteran colleague) by coming equipped with clipboard and paper and what looked like an impressive roll of cash (comprising a couple of pound notes and some stage money). He would then knock at the door, look at the house number, knock again, and invariably see a curtain twitch. At this point, he started to count the money, looking at the number and at the board, which usually led the housewife to answer the door, "because they thought they were going to get something for nothing."84
When the door was opened, a typical pitch went like this: "Good morning madam, I represent the North Metropolitan Electrical Power Supply Company, and I've been told to offer you my service, which is to clean one of your carpets, and some of your furniture with the latest Hoover cleaner."85 If the salesman was not turned away, he would proceed with the demonstration. Housewives usually raised a series of objections to buying, for which salesmen had ready answers (often learned at the training school). For example, if she said she couldn't afford it, the salesman might look out the window and say, "Well I see you got a nice lawn there madam, no doubt your husband cuts it with a modern cylinder type lawn mower. . . . Well surely he wouldn't expect to cut it with shears would he[?] Not now. . . . And does he expect you then to sweep this carpet with an old fashioned sweeping brush[?] I think not."86 Similarly, resistance to buying on HP might be countered with the phrase, "After all, you wouldn't pay your maid a year's wages in advance, would you?"87
In addition to being articulate, a successful salesman was endowed with the vital qualities of energy, confidence, and enthusiasm.88 However, the practicalities of selling vacuums door-to-door acted progressively to undermine morale, as the job entailed making calls that most often produced a curt "no thank you," or resulted in the door being slammed in the salesman's face. The salesman was lucky to even get as far as the demonstration and, even in these cases, only a very small number actually resulted in sales. A common feature of the nine salesmen's testimonies reviewed in the Appendix is mention of depression and despondency during periods of low sales, often leading to a downward spiral that eventually resulted in their being fired or in their simply giving up. In some cases, disillusionment set in almost at once. American direct-sales managers were advised to "[constantly check up on your salesmen, but be reasonable with them and make no promises you can't keep."89 Yet recruitment advertisements and training courses typically gave salesmen grossly inflated ideas regarding likely sales and earnings, which contrasted sharply with their actual earnings (reported in the testimonies to be often as low as �2, or even �1 10s, per week).90 For example, during Howard Stone's training, the class was shown a photograph of an employee who allegedly earned �1,000 a year by selling Hoover's door to door.91
Writer Bill Naughton had been recruited by a manufacturer of manually powered vacuum cleaners in 1930, at a time when he was a young, unemployed laborer, living in chronic poverty. He and another new recruit were each given a postcard with six names and addresses for demonstrations, and they had high hopes. Yet, "the optimisim, the excitement, the big talk, and the feeling of purpose" evaporated once they began to knock on the six doors and found that the demonstration bookings had been fabricated by the canvasser.92 Similarly, Howard Stone soon discovered that his allocated sales territory in Leigh-on-Sea had been "flogged and flogged and flogged again" by salesmen. Depression set in, aggravated by unpleasant incidents that punctuated days without sales. For example, on one occasion, feeling depressed after having had many doors slammed in his face, Stone knocked on the side door of a house that opened to reveal a huge dog bounding toward him. After the dog was restrained, Stone began his speech, which was cut short by the door's slamming in his face. He walked on to what he thought was the side door to the next house, unaware that he had in fact gone around to the back door of the same house. To his horror, when it opened, the same dog charged at him again.93
Even salesmen who were initially successful and were held up as exemplars to their colleagues often fell into depression when sales proved elusive. Sam Tobin, who continued as a vacuum salesman far longer than the other people included in the Appendix, and was awarded Hoover's Bronze Star for sales, described a frequent scenario:
Many, many times you knocked on doors, and you got no answer, or you got the door slammed in your face ... if you [were] following around people that were trying to sell the News of the World, The People, and . . . various other publications and also the Electrolux man and the Goblin man and the Thor man and all the other vacuum cleaner sellers, well you'd got no hope at all. . . . [S]o once more you just retired to the local park, or to the cinema until the day's work time had finished, and then you'd report back to the office, foot sore, weary, and thoroughly fed up.94
Motivational Management
Buell noted in 1954 that (in contrast to the scientific-management ethos prevalent in other branches of sales), the door-to-door sales manager still drew on inspirational techniques to motivate his sales force. Thus, his job essentially boiled down "to motivating more people to make more calls."95 This is reflected in a series of "observations of management," written by Groff for the managerial staff of Electrolux's U.S. sales branches during the early 1930s. In these observations, he focused on the problems of motivating and monitoring salesmen, seeking to counter the low morale that resulted when salesmen learned from their colleagues that typical earnings fell far short of what they had been promised during training.96 In-house magazines were also used to communicate directly with salesmen. For example, a surviving issue of the Hoover Family Success magazine, for April 1922, contains inspirational essays, poems, stories from salesmen, and other features under the common theme, "More demonstrations mean more commission." It dangled the carrot of high potential earnings:
A large number of resalemen have received cheques of �10 to �12 and �15 per week during the last few weeks. Have you received yours yet? It lies within your grasp, and we will be more pleased than you when cheques of this size are counted amongst the smallest we have to sign.97
Vacuum firms drew on the military model of managerial organization, which had been popular in U.S. direct selling since the Civil War.98 Former army, navy, or RAF officers were strongly represented in the ranks of sales managers.99 Hoover even awarded "medals" to successful salesmen, similar in design to First World War medals, for campaigns with titles such as "Spring Manoeuvres," "Hoover War," and "Hoover Crusade."100 An ethos of vigorous competition was encouraged by posting the turnover of each salesman in the local sales office and by launching frequent competitions, both for individual salesmen and for sales teams.101 Regular motivational dispatches were sent to salesmen, including one-page fliers displaying inspirational messages that echoed the motivational slogans posted in sales offices.102 Electrolux salesman H. L. Lacey even resorted to creating his own slogans, which he pinned to the wall of his bed-sitting room: "THE 2nd EFFORT TO RECOVERY COMMENCES JULY 10th" and "A SUCCESSFUL SALESMAN REQUIRES SELF DISCIPLINE." To these admonishments, he appended the underlined warning, "I MUST NOT FAIL."103
The use of both competitions and inspirational letters was a longestablished sales-management technique in the United States that had been evident since the 1860s.104 Hoover also employed a more unusual motivational device- the collective singing of company songs (adapted from popular tunes). These had been initiated by its American parent, in 1921, to boost morale at sales conventions and meetings; they were also sometimes used as a promotional device, featuring in cinema and radio advertising.105 Their U.K. subsidiary also embraced this technique. Local sales teams periodically received an inspirational talk over pints of bitter and snacks, rounding off the evening off with a selection of "Hoover songs." One refrain went like this:
Buy, buy, you need a Hoover,
Cleaning for you.
Buy, buy, make all your dreams
Of leisure come true
Buy, buy, your life is fleeting
Just let the Hoover do all your beating
Now it's the time,
Buy, buy, I'm here you,
I'm to serve you,
Buy madam, sign!106
Yet salesmen's testimonies indicate that the gap between the promised glowing rewards for effort and enthusiasm and the actual circumstances of their lives only served to alienate them further. As one former salesman noted, the humiliation, loss of nervous energy, and sense of utter futility that resulted from badgering unwilling and often hostile housewives, day after day, was only magnified by the final irony of receiving, at the end of a week without sales, no pay packet but instead, "a chatty 'sales bulletin,' charged with ponderous bonhomie and talk of cups and bonuses."107
Retaliation
Rapid labor turnover and a geographically dispersed workforce prevented any collective opposition by salesmen to what were widely perceived as exploitative conditions. Instead, resistance mainly took the form of various "fiddles," partly born out of desperation or opportunism, but also stemming from a desire to turn the tables on employers.108 In contrast to the competitive ethos that managers sought to engender, salesmen's testimonies indicate a strong sense of occupational solidarity (even between salesmen from rival companies). This acted both to promote a common consciousness of exploitation by their employers and to legitimize the various methods by which they could increase their meager incomes at their employers' expense- information about the various scams was commonly shared among salesmen.109
Frauds often grew from what was initially regarded as a temporary bending of the rules to get through periods of low earnings. For example, Hoover salesmen needed to arrange ten demonstrations per week to receive their �2 retainer. But in districts facing heavy canvassing, housewives had learned not to let the salesman through the door, making achievement of the requisite demonstrations problematic. Names and addresses couldn't simply be made up, in case they were checked by the supervisor. Sam Tobin resolved this problem by knocking on a door and asking, "Does Mrs MacWilliams live here?" The housewife might reply, "No, my name is Brown." He would then add, "Well perhaps Mrs MacWilliams lives at number 80," which would usually lead the housewife to reveal the name of her neighbor.110 Another, simpler, method was to take names and addresses from the local directory.111
Sometimes supervisors would turn a blind eye, or even collaborate, with fabricated demonstrations. A Mass Observation day-diary entry by E. Neilson recorded the morning's meeting with his supervisor, in which they wrote up the report for Hoover and collaborated in bringing his four demonstrations up to the requisite ten.112 Some people would play the system in a more calculated manner: rather than engaging in any real sales activity, they made up fictitious demonstrations so that they could draw the �2 retainer for four weeks, until they reached the �8 deficit and were fired.113
Trade-in deals also proved fertile territory for scams. Tobin recalled that, on receiving a Hoover Junior in partial exchange for a larger model, a salesman would typically make up the �2 difference between the full and the trade-in price from his own pocket and then sell the machine to one of his prospects. Conversely, if a housewife told him that she would like to buy a cleaner but didn't have the deposit, he would go to the local market and buy a second-hand cleaner in very poor condition, claiming that this had been traded in. Thus, if he sold the prospect a Junior he would earn 30s commission, in return for spending 10s or less, a clear profit of �1.114 Again, supervisors would often turn a blind eye, or even collaborate. MacLaren-Ross was fired from Hoover after a new branch manager learned that he had sold a traded-in cleaner to a prospect. The deal had in fact been instigated by his supervisor, who took half the money but used him to make the actual sale, in order to divert responsibility should this arrangement be discovered.115
Part-exchange scams sometimes developed into more complex deceptions, which occasionally found their way into the newspapers through the county or magistrate's courts. For example, in 1936 P. Maybury was charged with fraudulently obtaining �3 4s from the local agents for an unnamed vacuum manufacturer. He had reported a sale, claiming the housewife had provided a machine in part exchange. The firm advanced him the part exchange value, but the purchaser later denied signing the agreement, stating that she had allowed him to take away the cleaner because he told her he could sell it for 40s. The bench, stressing Maybury's public-school education, bound him over for six months.116
While salesmen's accounts universally present such behavior as an attack on their employers, in reality it often impacted most severely on the customer. For example, a number of county-court cases involved firms claiming "depreciation" charges of around half the price of cleaners that had been returned without, in some cases, the tissue in which the machine was wrapped even being opened.117 Defendants typically reported that they believed the machine was left with them on trial and that they had been deceived into signing the contract. As depreciation charges were specified in the HP contract, the judge generally had no option but to find in favor of the firm. However, several set monthly payments at only one penny- thus extending them over a hundred years or more. Judges also used these opportunities to denounce the door-todoor system and the manufacturers who used it. For example, in 1937 Judge Leigh condemned a salesman's methods as typical of what was "going on all over the county. People who are comparatively ignorant . . . are being bamboozled into signing documents they do not understand, and entering into contracts to buy things they do not want."118
Groff observed that dishonesty occurred mainly not among incompetent salesmen, but among their smarter brethren.119 These sharp characters could sometimes institute ambitious frauds. For example, in 1936 Archie Friday stood trial at the Old Bailey on four charges of obtaining money under false pretenses by forging signatures on HP agreements, while fellow salesman George Gutteridge was accused of conspiring with him to obtain money from London vacuum dealer Robert Edwards. Edwards had employed them to sell cleaners on commission only. Friday had hired two female canvassers, whom he allegedly instructed to "get in as many dud sales as you can," adding that he would change firms before this came to light. He received almost �300 commission on bogus contracts, costing Edwards around �500 to �600. Friday received nine months' imprisonment: the judge noted the complicity of a large number of people, obviously in on the fraud, who were fortunate not to be in the dock and who treated the matter "as a huge joke."120
By the mid-1930s, frauds of varying severity were producing such a strong public reaction that even the Hire Traders Protection Society (the main trade association for HP dealers) had begun to hold vacuum manufacturers publicly responsible for abuses their salesmen were forced by poverty to perpetrate. As a June 1936 Hire Traders Record article noted, salesmen who double-crossed their employers relied on their commissions for their daily living and thus did "many things which a living wage would never allow to be schemed."121 These reached the newspapers via court reports, impacting negatively on the reputations of the firms in question, door-to-door selling, and HP trading more generally. Adverse judicial and press reaction formed part of a broader campaign against opportunistic practices by HP traders and door-to-door salesmen. This eventually culminated in regulation to mitigate the worst abuses, via the 1938 Hire Purchase Act, which received support from the main HP trade associations in a belief that it might redress the reputational damage to their trade.122
Adverse publicity strengthened consumer resistance to the doorto-door salesman. Meanwhile, the growing intensity of canvassing acted to educate the consumer in the art of saying no to the salesman's call. Thus, despite an attempt by Hoover in the late 1930s to promote its salesmen as "friends" who had done hundreds of thousands of housewives "a really good turn," the job of getting past the front door was becoming increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, declining unemployment, particularly in the relatively prosperous South and Midlands, was undoubtedly reducing the supply of good-quality sales recruits. Sales campaigns began to falter. In March 1939, Colston reported a decline in Hoover's annual profits from �419,807 to �338,515, which he ascribed to an expansion of its sales force to meet what the company expected to be a difficult year, but this tactic did not produce a corresponding increase in sales.123
As noted above, national vacuum-cleaner sales in the late 1930s of around 400,000 were no higher than they had been during the middle of the decade. Industry commentators talked of market saturation, as by 1938 replacement demand was estimated to account for around three out of every eight cleaners purchased (based on an estimated lifespan of around six to eight years).124 Yet the estimated 2.3 million cleaners in use by 1939 represented only around 30 percent of wired homes, or 52 percent of households with incomes above the "working-class" range (over �250 per annum).125
Door-to-door sales, which had been a spectacularly successful marketing tool during the "pre-demand" stage of diffusion, thus proved much less effective in moving the market to the demand stage. As evidenced by the Mass Observation survey, the presence of cleaners in half of Britain's middle-class households did not create any burning desire among the other half to emulate them. Furthermore, most households with sufficient income to purchase a vacuum but not possessing one had already rebuffed the advances of several salesmen and were thus infertile ground for canvassing. Meanwhile, the high cost structure of the door-to-door system impeded diffusion to the much broader working-class market. While many working-class households could afford a typical consumer durable with a manufacturing cost of �4, a distribution system that raised the retail price to �21 effectively priced them out of the market.
Conclusion
This case study illustrates the formidable personnel problems inherent in door-to-door sales management. As high-ticket items, vacuum cleaners necessarily faced a restricted market. Meanwhile, sales managers realized that maximizing aggregate sales involved maximizing the size of their sales force- especially as they faced intense competition from rival firms. Yet saturating the streets with salesmen both depressed earnings per person and increased consumer resistance to letting salesmen through the door. This, in turn, exacerbated problems of staff recruitment and retention, which managers typically solved by citing potential earnings far in excess of what was achievable and using motivational techniques to convince salesmen that shortfalls in earnings were their own fault.
However, strong information networks among salesmen soon alerted them to both the gap between their promised and likely earnings and the various scams by which incomes could be increased at their employers' expense. These were reported in the press and further intensified consumer resistance to salesmen's calls. Sales managers failed to develop an incentive structure that would reconcile their twin objectives of motivating salesmen to maximize sales and inducing them to avoid opportunistic behavior that would damage long-term sales growth. The result of this failure was a progressive increase in consumer resistance, from which door-to-door marketing in Britain has never recovered.
[Author Affiliation]
PETER SCOTT is professor of international business history at the Henley Business School, University of Reading.
Thanks are due to the staff of the Bodleian Library; British Library (St. Paneras and Colindale); Essex Record Office; Geffrye Museum Library; Gunnersbury Park Museum; Harrods Company Archive; Mass Observation Archive; Museum of London Archive; National Archive for Electrical Science and Technology; and the National Archives, London. I would also like to thank Jack Copp, Mike French, Howell Harris, Andrew Popp, Frank Trentmann, and two anonymous referees for their comments. Any errors are my own.
[Author Affiliation]
Peter Scott is professor of international business history at the Henley Business School, University of Reading. His current research covers various aspects of household consumption, and the marketing and distribution of consumer goods, in interwar Britain. His monograph Triumph of The South: A Regional Economic History of Britain during the Early Twentieth Century (2007) was awarded the 2008 Wadsworth Prize for the best monograph on British business history.
