What is 1 to 1 selling?

Answer 1

1 to 1 selling means exactly what it says - one person selling to one person. Eg "I have a widget, and I persuade you to buy it". That is one-to-one selling. Another form of selling is 'off-the-page' - the seller places an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine, complete with an order form, in the hope that readers will be persuaded to fill in the form and send off an order. Another form is 'direct mail selling' - 'mail' includes both email and traditional 'snailmail'. In this case, promotional sales literature is sent to a large number of addressees, in the hope that some will open the mail, read the literature, and be persuaded to order the product being promoted by filling in the form and sending it off complete with credit card details. The difference between one-to-one (or 1-2-1) selling and the other two forms is that off-the-page and direct mail involve no personal contact whatsoever - the seller does not know any of the buyers and vice versa. There is also one-to-many selling - think of pavement (sidewalk) hustlers who mesmerise passing pedestrians and persuade them to buy whatever wares they are peddling. Or think of the so-called snake oil salesmen of old, who persuaded crowds to step right up and buy their patented medications. Now - here's a question. Nearly all of us buy goods every week in supermarket - yet nobody in the supermarket ever tries to sell us anything. We just push our trolleys around and buy. So what kind of selling goes on that persuades us to go and buy goods in a supermarket?