Avon lady gets a foot in the door

A trudge up three flights of stairs in an apartment complex in the dry heat of Xinjiang is enough to leave anyone perspiring. Yet 22-year-old Aixam Turcun looks immaculate as she reaches the doorstep in her smart turquoise business suit with a totebag full of skincare products slung over her shoulder. She raps on the apartment door and is welcomed warmly into a room where thick colourful carpets, typically found in the homes of Muslim Uygurs in the region, line the floors and walls. Hello, Xinjiang; Avon is calling. This remote province in the northwest of the mainland may seem an unlikely place to find an Avon lady knocking on your door. Yet in the 15 months since the direct-selling cosmetics giant set up a branch in Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi, the people seem quite taken with the dealers who travel across the region, arriving on doorsteps by horse-taxis, trains or buses. So much so that the province has become one of the top earners for the company in China since its first factory was built in Guangzhou seven years ago. Another plant in Conghua, Guangdong, is due to be completed next year. More than 10 million people on the mainland are involved in direct sales, with turnover last year close to 10 billion yuan (HK$9.34 billion), according to the Economic Information Daily. But the shutdown by authorities of about 200 illegal direct-selling companies has fuelled suspicions about the industry. As one skeptic-turned customer, Minawar Sayiti, said of the direct-sell products: 'It wasn't available in the department store so I didn't trust it. I wasn't sure if it was legal.' The freelance Hong Kong photographer who proposed the trip to Xinjiang for the company's brochures, and those accompanying him, were not sure what they would find in the most remote region of the mainland. Urumqi itself is not so desolate a place, though much of the province is. The city is an urban sprawl of high-rises under construction, crumbling square brick houses, and residential apartment blocks. Stout red lanterns celebrating Hong Kong's return to China still cling to lamp-posts. Familiar names in English like Bossini, Mercedes-Benz and Kwun Kee Tailor are spotted among the store-fronts on the tree-lined streets; smoke from roasting lamb kebabs curls into the dry air, a testament to the city's minority Uygur population living among the majority Han Chinese. 'Uygurs are naturally beautiful so we don't have that much knowledge about cosmetics,' explains Ms Turcun, a Uygur, in her fluent Putonghua. And therein lies her future, she says. She will educate herself and others about how to stay beautiful and, in the mantra of the cosmetic industry, how to grow old gracefully. The success of modern Western cosmetics in Xinjiang is attributed to two factors: the hot, dry climate which makes moisturiser a good sell (Avon's top-selling moisturiser costs 350 yuan); and the average monthly income of 700 yuan, comparatively higher than the state-owned factory wage of 400 yuan a month, according to Urumqi's Avon branch operations manager David Wang Ai Wu. Mr Wang, who was raised in a sand-swept chemical factory town outside Urumqi, emphasises the involvement of employees when describing how to keep the branch successful, citing Western-style management practices like self-evaluations and two-way participatory management. 'Every employee has potential and we want to emphasise their personal development. We do not want to be autocratic, like many traditional Chinese companies,' he says. Because direct selling can be too aggressive for locals unused to the technique, the company suggests employees try selling to families and friends first. But that proved difficult in the beginning, says Dabby Lin Bin, the branch sales manager. 'We have to do a lot of mentality training. Direct selling is still new to China. Some people still believe that if you do business with your family or friends, it is not as ethical an acquisition.' The training, apparently, was effective. In the first six months of this year, the Urumqi branch raked in 11.7 million yuan of the country's 324.7 million yuan in net sales. Urumqi's contribution may appear only a fraction, but it rivals Chengdu and Beijing as the top-selling branches among the 80 scattered across the mainland. There is no branch in Hong Kong; only the company's Asia-Pacific headquarters are based in the SAR. Although their products were once sold here, Avon withdrew in the 1980s; the market was considered too small. But the company is now investigating the feasibility of selling to the local market again, as part of their China operations. For Urumqi's 10,000 part-time franchise dealers (the official name for 'Avon ladies') the company provides a legitimate get-rich-quick scheme, enabling them to make hundreds if not thousands of dollars more than the average monthly wage at their regular full-time jobs. Some see such vast potential in the region that they have quit their full-time jobs altogether, despite the fact that the company provides only administrative and managerial full-time staff with medical and pension benefits. Take Mary Bai Hong, a pale, petite and ambitious 27-year-old, who quit her job as a Holiday Inn banquet supervisor where she was making a fraction of her current 6,000 yuan monthly income. Since she began working as a sales manager last March, she says she has seen her salary rise between 1,000 and 2,000 yuan a month by exploring the vast markets outside Urumqi, paying her own way to eight cities and recruiting 1,000 franchise dealers in the process. With her earnings, she first bought a refrigerator, then a pager, and will save up next for a mobile phone. Her aim is to open a restaurant with her husband, a cook she met while working at the hotel. What direct selling has allowed her, she says, is a comfortable amount of independence and a vast market (all or any part of Xinjiang) with limited investment, yet high earning potential. And in a country where people remain suspicious of direct selling because of the growth in hundreds of illegal companies, some of which have gone bust, Avon's reputation as a legitimate business was also important, she says. There are also men, admittedly few, who have joined the company in a joint venture with the mainland venture, Masson Limited. Cheng Feng was 19 when he abandoned his ambition of becoming a policeman in his native city of Luoyang in Henan province. He was familiar with Avon through his sister, a franchise dealer, who told him about the expansion in Urumqi. 'My friends thought I was ridiculous to abandon this job that would allow me so much power and authority, especially when commercial business is not so well respected,' says Mr Cheng, 22. 'But I didn't want to be restricted to an eight-hour day. I wanted to have freedom and work on my own time. To be a chief officer, you have to wait a long time for the old people to retire.' Mr Cheng decided to test the market first himself. With 2,000 yuan borrowed from his parents and a bag full of skincare products, he took the 60-hour train ride to Urumqi. Business was brisk enough for him to return to replenish his supply every two weeks, then every week. He continued the trips for more than two months, before he befriended regular travellers who agreed to transport the products for him. His earnings as a franchise dealer now total between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan a month. And although many dealers are encouraged to sell to friends and family, his strategy has been to approach offices, where being a male can be an advantage because 'women prefer talking to men', he says. While employees say it is a combination of independence, freedom and more earning potential that attracts them, Ms Lin, the branch sales manager, says training programmes which instil a sense of motivation, self-esteem and pride have also contributed to the company's success. The interior of the Avon branch is lined with headshots of employees, under headings that read 'Be part of our Avon family'. Outside, posters of grinning blonde and brunette models greet employees. Although it has to compete with other direct-selling cosmetic companies, get people to trust a brand name not sold in department stores and deal with the most difficult problem of high staff turnover, Ms Lin stresses that an emphasis on employee well-being will keep it successful. 'We teach them how to sit and walk; we make it personal so they can feel it changes their lives. And we organise family events so that families can support and encourage their successes. And we hope they receive recognition that they seldom get in their entire lives.'