In 1948, Earl Tupper had invented a

In 1948, Earl Tupper had invented a new type of airtight plastic food containers, but they were not selling well in the stores. He was convinced that housewives would love these containers if they had a chance to try them. The problem was how to get the containers out of the stores and into their homes. So he invented the Tupperware Party. At these parties, women invited their friends and neighbors to their home for a cup of coffee. Then they showed the containers and offered them for sale. Since women usually liked the containers and they did not cost much, sales were usually brisk. This happy combination of a good product with the "home party" led to the enormous success of the Tupperware brand and the opening of Tupperware stores

More than a half-century after the first Tupperware parties, all sorts of products are being sold at home parties in America, including baskets, detergents, cosmetics, and health products. Sales of this type now total around $8 billion every year. The marketing methods of these parties are similar to the original Tupperware home parties. A salesperson (typically a middle-aged woman working part-time) convinces another woman to host a party and invite her friends, relatives, and neighbors to see the products, cosmetics, for instance. At the party, the women are served coffee and are encouraged to talk about cosmetics in general and to try some of the products that are for sale. News and enthusiasm about the parties—and the cosmetics—are passed from one woman to another and from one town to the next. This is what economists call "viral marketing," where new customers come to a product almost entirely through existing customers

One business that has made good use of the home party method is the Longaberger Company in Ohio, which manufactures hand-woven baskets. It produces baskets of all kinds—picnic baskets, laundry baskets, flower baskets, etc.—each one signed by an individual basket maker. The baskets are then marketed at home "shows," as they are called by the company. These home shows are so effective that many thousands of baskets are sold every day in the United States. There is also a strong market for old, used Longaberger baskets, which have become collectors' items and sell for large sums on eBay. For example, a "Two Pie Basket" that originally sold for $10 in 1986 recently sold for $450. When Longaberger published his autobiography in 2001, he used the same marketing methods to promote it. As a result, although the book had not been advertised much outside of the Longaberger network, it nevertheless became a national best-seller.