The Direct Selling Association is the national trade association of the ......... firms that manufacture and distribute goods and services sold directly to consumers.

Direct selling is the sale of a consumer product or service, person-to-person, away from a ......... retail location.

Products are sold primarily through in-home product demonstrations, parties and ......... selling.

Data from surveys indicate that direct selling remains a ......... marketing method that engenders considerable loyalty among its representatives and customers.

Early direct sellers — hawkers, peddlers, traders, ......... merchants and caravans — were part of an ancient tradition that originated in man's basic need to exchange goods and to communicate.

The development and use of roads and water routes for commercial activity were ......... points in the history of direct selling.

As early as 2000 B.C., the ......... of Hammurabi, a monument of Babylonian law, protected the general welfare and integrity of the Babylonian direct seller, stating that 'the peddler shall swear the oath of God' if any enemy caused him trouble in the travels.

The ......... of the renowned Yankee Peddler in the early American territories of the 18th and 19th centuries consisted of items like pins, needles, hooks, scissors, combs, small hardware and perfume.

The advent of the home party in the 1950s added a new ......... to direct selling as customers gathered at the home of hostesses to see product demonstrations and socialize with friends.

Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Internet has become an important element of direct selling — essentially giving each direct seller a worldwide customer ..........